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Destination Guides > North America > USA > Mid-Atlantic > New Jersey > New Jersey shore > Atlantic City
Atlantic City
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? The Town
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ATLANTIC CITY
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Hotels in Atlantic City
• Resorts Casino Hotel Atlantic City from $99.00 USD
• Trump Plaza Atlantic City from $145.00 USD
• Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa Atlantic City from $179.00 USD
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Vacation Rentals in Atlantic City
• Skyline Tower Atlantic City from $190.00 USD
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READ IT HERE
What they wanted was Monte Carlo. They didn't want Las Vegas.
What they got was Las Vegas. We always knew that they would get Las Vegas .
Stuart Mendelson, Philadelphia Journal, 1978.
ATLANTIC CITY , on Absecon Island just off the midpoint of the Jersey shoreline, has been a tourist magnet since 1854, when Philadelphia speculators created it as a rail terminal resort. In The real-life model for the board game Monopoly , it has an impressive history of popular culture, boasting the nation's first Boardwalk (1870), the world's first Big Wheel (1892), the first color postcards (1893) and the first Miss America Beauty Pageant (cunningly devised to extend the tourist season in 1921, and still held here yearly). During Prohibition and the Depression, Atlantic City was a center for rum-running, packed with speakeasies and illegal gambling dens. Thereafter, in the face of increasing competition from Florida, it slipped into a steep decline, until city officials decided in 1976 to open up the resort to legal gambling .
The Town
Arriving by train, you'll be confronted by the monstrous Convention Center , which opened above the station in 1997, and houses a massive food court and standard mall shops, along with its meeting spaces and countless hotel rooms. Most of the hopeful new arrivals, however, head straight for the casinos, with an ample overspill flooding the Boardwalk and beach.
Atlantic City's wooden Boardwalk was originally built as a temporary walkway, raised above the beach so that vacationers could take a seaside stroll without treading sand into the grand hotels. Alongside the brash 99? shops and exotically named palm-readers, a few beautiful Victorian buildings that survived the wrecker's ball invoke past elegance, despite being dwarfed by the casinos and housing fast-food joints. Early in the morning, when the breezes from the ocean are at their most pleasant, the Boardwalk is peaceful, peopled only by keen cyclists and a few lost souls down on their luck.
The Central Pier offers all the fun of a fair, with rides, games and old-fashioned "guess your weight" challenges. A few blocks south, another pier has been remodeled into an ocean-liner-shaped shopping center. The small and faded Arts Center and Historic Museum (tel 609/347-5837), on the Garden Pier at the quiet northern end of the Boardwalk, has a free collection of seaside memorabilia, postcards, photos and a special exhibit on Miss America, as well as traveling art shows. A block off the Boardwalk, where Pacific Avenue meets Rhode Island Avenue, and at the heart of some of the city's worst deprivation, stands the Absecon Lighthouse . Active until 1933, it's recently been fully restored and offers a terrific view from its 167ft tower (July-Aug daily 11am-4pm, Sat also 7pm-9pm; Sept-Dec and March-June Thurs-Mon 11am-4pm; call for Jan-Feb hours; $4; tel 609/449-1360).
Atlantic City's beach is free, family filled and surprisingly clean, considering its proximity to the Boardwalk. Beaches at well-to-do Ventnor , a jitney ride away, are quieter, but charge users $3 per week. For the same fee, New Jersey's beautiful people pose on the beaches of Margate , three miles south of Atlantic City; all watched over by Lucy, the Margate Elephant at 9200 Atlantic Ave. A 65ft wood and tin Victorian oddity, Lucy was built as a seaside attraction in 1881 and used variously as a tavern and a hotel. Today her huge belly is filled with a museum of Atlantic City memorabilia, and photos and artifacts from her own history (Apr-May and Sept-Oct Sat & Sun 10am-5pm; June-Aug Mon-Sat 10am-8pm, Sun 10am-5pm; closed Nov-Mar; $4; tel 609/823-6473).
Traveling to Atlantic City by bus can be a real money-spinner; casino-sponsored buses from New York, Philadelphia and other points along the coast give away vouchers exchangeable for cash and free meals to a value well above the fare. It's hoped that you will spend all this money and more in the casinos, but you can easily cash it and leave. The brand new bus terminal at Atlantic and Ohio is served by Greyhound (tel 609/345-6617 or 1-800/231-2222) and New Jersey Transit (tel 973/762-5100 or 1-800/772-3606) as well as several other bus companies connecting the city with New York, Washington, DC and Philadelphia.
New Jersey Transit trains ($6 one-way, $12 round-trip) run between Atlantic City and Philadelphia, from the new train station next to the Convention Center at 1 Miss America Way (tel 1-800/AC-TRAIN). Atlantic City International Airport in Pomona (tel 609/645-7895) has direct flights to Philadelphia, as well as further afield to cities in Florida and the Midwest; a shuttle bus service connects the airport with the city proper ($20; tel 1-888/640-2222). For maps and information, head for the Atlantic City Convention and Visitors Association , 2314 Pacific Ave (Mon-Fri 9am-5pm; tel 609/348-7100 or 1-888/228-4748, ). Two satellite offices are open longer hours - try the helpful visitor information desk in Ocean One Mall on the Boardwalk (daily 11am-7pm) or the new visitors center on the AC Expressway one mile east of the Atlantic City toll plaza (summer Mon-Thurs 9am-5pm, Fri-Sun 9am-8pm, winter daily 9am-5pm; tel 609/449-7130 or 1-888/AC-VISIT).
Atlantic City is easy to walk around, although it is unwise to stray further from the five-mile Boardwalk along the ocean than the parallel Pacific, Atlantic and Arctic avenues, as other parts of the city can be dangerous at night. Ventnor and Margate, to the south on Absecon Island, are served by buses along Atlantic Avenue. Pale blue Jitneys (tel 609/344-8642) offers a 24-hour minibus service the length of Pacific Avenue, the #1 route traveling as far as Ventnor ($1.50 exact change required).
Various bike rental stands along the Boardwalk charge about $3 per hour, although cycling is only permitted from 6am until 10am in the summer.
Each of Atlantic City's dozen casinos , which also act as luxury hotels, conference centers and concert halls, has a slightly different image, despite the apparent uniformity of vast, richly ornamented halls, slot machines, relentless flashing lights and incessant noise, chandeliers, mirrors, and a disorienting absence of clocks or windows.
By far the most ostentatious (and "The Don" wouldn't have it any other way) is Donald Trump's Disneyesque Taj Mahal . Occupying nearly twenty acres and over forty stories high, this gigantic but oddly anticlimactic piece of Far Eastern kitsch stands opposite the arcade-packed Steel Pier at the north end of the Boardwalk, dotted with glittering minarets and onion domes. It is one of the largest gambling casinos on earth, precariously tottering on the edge of bankruptcy. At the other end of the scale, the Claridge , Indiana Avenue and the Boardwalk, dubs itself "the friendly casino" and is smaller, darker and more downmarket than the others. Sands , next door at South Indiana Avenue, is a noisy and popular venue with a vague circus theme. Both these properties are slightly off the Boardwalk, accessible by a glass-covered slow-moving sidewalk with accompanying taped music from the various stars who have played Atlantic City. Caesars , Arkansas Avenue and the Boardwalk, has an uninspired Roman theme, with statues of Greek gods, marble columns and laurel wreaths at every turn.
All casinos are open 24 hours a day, and have a strict minimum age requirement , so be prepared to show ID to prove you're 21 or older if you plan to gamble.
One side-effect of Atlantic City's rabid commercialization is an abundance of fast food . The Boardwalk is lined with pizza, burger and sandwich joints, and the diners on Atlantic and Pacific avenues serve soul food and cheap breakfasts. All the large casinos boast several restaurants, ranging in price and menu, as well as all-you-can-eat buffets - most cost around $14 for lunch, and a little more for dinner. Some of the casinos offer half-price buffets to "members" or "VIPs" - all you have to do to join is fill in a form and give some proof of address. If money's running low after too many days in the casino, there are bargain buffets on the Boardwalk for less than $5 - but inevitably, you get what you pay for.
Hunan Chinese Restaurant 2323 Atlantic Ave tel 609/348-5946. Reasonably priced Chinese food two blocks from the Boardwalk. Combination plates from $7.
Los Amigos 1926 Atlantic Ave tel 609/344-2293. Great for cheap, late-night food, this Mexican restaurant is open until 5am Friday and Saturday, while its bar serves until 6am.
Pappa T's Pizza 1245 Boardwalk tel 609/348-5030. One of the better cheap and cheerful Boardwalk joints, with pizza and breakfast from $3.50.
Planet Hollywood at Caesars , 2100 Pacific Ave on the Boardwalk tel 609/347-STAR. Decent burgers and salads at hyped-up prices in a hyped-up atmosphere.
White House Sub Shop Mississippi and Arctic aves tel 609/345-8599. This bright and super-efficient sandwich bar is where Bill Cosby gets his subs when in town. Prices range from $6 for half a French loaf crammed with omelette, to $12 for a full steak sandwich.
Atlantic City sells itself as the fun nighttime city; but the nightlife centers on the casinos and Boardwalk amusements. Once you get bored with slot machines there is little else to do. Big-name entertainers perform regularly at the casinos, with tickets in the $30 range - the free weekly Whoot has listings. The Comedy Stop comedy club at the Tropicana (tel 609/340-4000) has twice nightly shows, each costing $18. For cheaper informal fun, good neighborhood bars include the friendly, dark-paneled Irish Pub , 164 St James Place (tel 609/345-9613), which serves cheap food and often has live Irish music, and McGuire's Pittsburgh Caf? , 142 S Tennessee Ave (tel 609/345-9607).
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