The Queen of the Coast. The World’s Playground. The Casino Capital of the East. They can only describe Atlantic City, New Jersey. Beloved, maligned, always-hustling since its 1854 founding, the seaside resort has seen it all: first class hotels, popular amusements on the world famous Boardwalk and its piers, Prohibition, gangsters, speakeasies, conventioneers, celebrities, urban pride, urban decay, a casino revival, a casino collapse—and it hasn’t given up yet.
Boardwalk Playground shares a hundred stories of Atlantic City’s high spots and low points of the past century and a half, with an emphasis on the hospitality business that evolved into casino gaming—and is evolving again. With sections on the city’s history, its classic hospitality, personalities, community institutions, and casino resorts, this book is essential reading for anyone who wants to know what gives Atlantic City its unexpected allure.
Begun as a monthly series in Casino Connection magazine, the stories in this book chart the rises and falls of Atlantic City through the years, featuring visionaries like Dr. Jonathan Pitney, who first imagined a seaside health resort on Absecon Island; political boss Nucky Johnson, who ran a wide-open town during Prohibition and reaped the benefits; Captain John Young, who built an amusement empire; Mayor Charles White, who called for the legalization of casino gambling in 1936; 500 Club owner Skinny D’A
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rollthebonesbook.comRoll the Bones: The History of Gambling – Casino Edition, non-fiction by David G. Schwartz
Roll the Bones: The History of Gambling – Casino Edition, non-fiction by David G. Schwartz