Now, there's trouble bustin' in from outta state
And the DA can't get no relief
Gonna be a rumble out on the promenade
And the gamblin' commission's hangin' on by the skin of its teeth

Well now, everything dies, baby, that's a fact
But maybe everything that dies someday comes back
Put your makeup on, fix your hair up pretty
And meet me tonight in Atlantic City


. . .

Legal gambling was barely four years going when Bruce Springsteen wrote "Atlantic City" in 1982, but gambling had been bringing people to this city for years. It wasn't always so desperate, though.

It's no mistake that the most well known board game in history is based on Atlantic City. Hasbro first patented Monopoly in 1935, when Atlantic City was "America's Playground." AC adopted that nickname as its slogan and kept it basically until Borgata changed the game in 2003, when AC changed its slogan to "always turned on."

Way back when, it truly was America's playground -- well, Philadelphia's playground, anyway. Atlantic City was a resort town before America knew resort towns. The train between Philly and AC opened in 1854, the same year AC was incorporated as a city. The train made it an easy weekend retreat for Philadelphians. In the early 20th century, it was already built to impress. A boardwalk was built to keep sand out of the lobbies of the many hotels on the beach, and attractions like the amusement piers and the diving horse kept those hotels filled.

But like so many northern American cities, life after World War II was not kind to AC. Cars allowed people to come to AC -- and go on to other destinations -- as they pleased, where the train had been a reliable, steady gauge of AC's tourism. Readily available airliners could take would-be AC visitors to more exotic locations like Miami or even Cuba. People moved to the suburbs for bigger homes and swimming pools instead of cramped quarters and a dirty ocean. Other than the Miss American Pageant, which was born in AC in 1921 and hosted there until Las Vegas ripped it away in 2005, all those big hotels sorely missed their visitors. Enter gambling.

Where back room gambling had been a poorly kept secret for years, legal gambling was a major benchmark. A New Jersey state referendum in 1974 failed to legalize gaming, but the 1976 one passed, and in 1978, Resorts International opened its doors, ushering in a new era in Atlantic City. There are now thirteen casinos, several of which are currently expanding. Whether it has played any role in revitalizing the downtrodden neighborhoods of the city -- or even those closest to the boardwalk -- is a question that can only be answered honestly by seeing it first hand. The enormous, ample parking garages are one indication.

This set of 40 photos is split between the central Boardwalk and the marina, an isolated section of AC home to the Trump Marina, Harrah's, the Borgata, very little residents, and New Jersey's first ever wind farm.


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