Remembering Atlantic City
Atlantic City has always had a special place in our growing up. We referred to it as "the shore" or "going down the shore", This was an annual or semi annual pilgrimage of many Philadelphians. One of the earliest photos I have of myself with my sister is with my father crouched down helping me feed the pigeons on the Boardwalk near the Strand Hotel. My father is wearing a nice suit and sweater vest, I am in a hat and a one piece zip up snow suit. My sister is wearing a warm sweater. Both of us are wearing typical white baby shoes. It must have been either early spring or early fall. Nicely dressed people some in overcoats and high heals are walking the boards, passing by the Strand Restaurant. I must have been one year old and my sister three. Cars didn’t have air-conditioning in my youth and when we drove home from the shore in the summer with the windows opened we encountered the smell of the mash from one of the Philly distilleries located on the Delaware river.There was a choice of bridges, but mostly I remember we took the Tacony-Palmyra which was closest to our section of the city or the Benjamin Franklin if were were going by way of center city.The Walt Whitman Bridge wouldn't be open to traffic until 1957. The Tacony was a drawbridge and it had this marvelous humming sound when your car crossed from the asphalt part on to the metal section. Before the Atantic City Expressway was opened one traveled on either the White Horse or the Black Horse Pike. Both sides of the road had vendors selling fresh corn and tomatoes harvested from nearby farms. We always approached Atlantic City via Egg Harbor which smelled like rotten eggs. We knew we were nearer our destination when we spotted the Goodyear Blimp in the air over the ocean or saw the planes trailing banners advertising the diving horse at Steel Pier or suntan lotion. Around this time in our trip the car’s radiator would threaten to overheat and we would join the line of cars cooling off along the sides of the highway. We often stayed at a guest house owned by my uncl Sol’s aunt whom we endearingly called “Tanta”. This was on Pacific Avenue near the inlet. Tanta's Guest House offered the smell of mould and a host of little silver bugs darting across the old wallpaper. There was a great porch with green painted rocking chairs. Tanta's Guest House had what was called a common kitchen for all of the families to share. It was located only a few blocks from the boardwalk, so as soon as we checked in, we grabbed our chairs, blankets, cooler and umbrella and headed for the beach. The beach was fascinating. Walking from the boardwalk to the spot we selected was a big trek for a little guy and the sand really burned the bottom of my feet. I would return to Tanta’s with tar on the soles of my feet which was very difficult to clean off. I had sand in my shoes for days after coming home to Philly. It seemed to me that my Grandmother's vocation was to proyect me from the hazards of the ocean. She would watch me like a hawk. She was my personal lifeguard when I went near the water. I remember being afraid of the waves for many years. The beach was a wonderland filled with little sand crabs you could play with and shells that housed the sound of the waves inside. We took these shells back and showed our friends how they could hear the ocean. Ice cream salesmen shouted “Heeya, ice cream and ices” shlepping big white coolers with a big leather strap. The ice cream and ices were kept cold by dried ice . These ice cream salesmen wore shoes which I always thought incongruous on the beach. There was never a shortage of popsicle sticks that we could collect, wash off in the water and make into woven trays. But no matter what I put in my mouth it always had sand on it. At the end of the day we would go to a restaurant quite often my grandfather would treat us to dinner at Hackney’s or Captain Starn's. I don’t remember what I ate although it was always called a child’s portion. I’ll never forget the lines waiting to get a table, lines that seemed to wind from out on the ocean around the block and then up stairs past aquariums of live lobsters which we never ate as they weren't kosher, not that any of those restaurants were kosher to begin with. And when that ritual was finally over the excitement would begin. That's when we would "walk the boards". Tand the bulesqu house that advertised its taklents with the line “Seeing is believing”. he boardwalk was the most interesting place in the world. Salt water taffy that paved the way to dental destruction. Soft ice cream. Whatever kids were with us that is my sister and I and any others would all be given a little pocket money and off we would go each according to his budget and his desires. There was the penny arcades. A movie made by cards flipping in a black box for a penny and machine guns that zeroed in on jap planes and penny machines with mounted rifles that your fired at objects, like ducks and even people marching idiotically acroos your field of vision. Fruit drink that spouted from the brass pillars also a penny. On the piersI think Steeple chase pier of Million Dollaer Pier beneath a monumental bilboard of some smiling idiot whos teeth reminded me of an orange peel (I would often imitate that smile with an orange peel at home. there were more sophisticated games of skill with baseballs and wooden milk bottles and there were plenty of “rides”. And where were our parents during this hour of absolute paradise? They didn’t have any extra money to spend on themselves so they walked and talked. Looked in the windows of the many auction houses. There was always a fixed place where we would join them. Like outside conventin hall with its massive projectors sitting right there on the floor of the boardwalk that beamed light into the sky that could be seen for miles and the marquess advertising the ice-scapades. Or opposite one of the landmark hotels like the the Traymore or the Haddon-Hall or the Dennis near where our grandmothers sat in the rolling chairs in their fine fur stoles and Jewely and gossipped in Yiddish. parkedtarget practice
Atlantic City hosted LBJ and company in 1964 and it was not an artistic success
When the Democrats Came to Town
By Jim Waltzer
The Democrats were coming. The Democrats were coming.
Lyndon Baines Johnson was seashore-bound and preparing for the capper of his long, vibrant, political career: his party's nomination for President of the United States. It was the summer of 1964, and the world was heating up.
LBJ, of course, was already the commander-in-chief, having succeeded the slain John F. Kennedy the preceding November. The tall (is there any other kind?) Texan had energy and expertise to spare, and an ambitious agenda for the nation. He planned to wage a war on poverty. Expand his predecessor's civil rights efforts. Check the advance of Communism. He was outsize, crafty. He could play Congress like a banjo. He knew well the uses of executive power and persuasion.
His Republican opponent, Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater, had already been labeled trigger-happy and posed no real competition. But these were tricky times. Three weeks earlier, Johnson himself had upped the ante in Vietnam by ordering a substantial American response to the Gulf of Tonkin incident. The stage was set for him to emerge, finally, from Kennedy's shadow, but he was leery of public passion for the martyred president stealing the show.
The Democratic minions launched their opening ceremonies on Aug. 24 in Atlantic City, chosen for no small reason due to Johnson's close friendship with New Jersey Governor Richard Hughes. Inside cavernous Convention Hall, the placards of delegates bobbed like buoys in the ocean. Soon, scoreboard-size photos of FDR, JFK, Harry S. Truman, and LBJ sandwiched the exhortation "Let us continue." Balloons would fill the air.
Outside, things were less festive. Supporters of the Freedom Democratic Party sat in the rain at Boardwalk Plaza and held signs citing the three civil rights workers who had been murdered in Mississippi earlier in the summer. The FDP faithful had brought a firebombed car to town to show how some blacks were treated down South when they tried to register to vote.
Beyond the plaza, an aging Atlantic City was exposed to the nation. The camera no longer loved the city (quite the opposite) whose infrastructure was incapable of meeting the demands of the moment. Hotel switchboards and air-conditioning sagged, leaving delegates, politicos, and media types moist with outrage. Worse, they were paying premium rates. They vented their collective spleen in print and over the airwaves.
In the arena, though, unity and accommodation prevailed. Vice-Presidential nominee Hubert Humphrey brokered a deal that gave the Freedom Democratic Party two at-large votes to supplement those of the 24 all-white delegates from Mississippi. Johnson, however, eventually was nominated by acclamation, so vote tallies were unnecessary.
A film highlighting LBJ's career was on tap, as was one about John F. Kennedy, and the candidate and his handlers were careful to not arouse resentment -- the Johnson piece ran first. Indeed, the Kennedy presentation would have been a tough act to follow; Robert F. Kennedy, tears in his eyes, received a 22-minute ovation before he could even introduce the film about JFK. Later, he quoted Shakespeare in referring to his late brother: "When he shall die, take him and cut him into stars and he shall make the face of heaven so fine that all the world will be in love with night and pay no worship to the garish sun."
On the final day of the 1964 Democratic National Convention, President Lyndon Johnson celebrated his 56th birthday by accepting the nomination. Four years later, Vietnam was a quagmire and LBJ announced he would not run again. Robert Kennedy sought the job but was shot and killed just as momentum had swung his way. His party's convention in Chicago was a nasty affair of riots and suppression, one of the low notes in American history.
It was a changed country by then, and a changed Atlantic City, too. LBJ's urban redevelopment initiatives had created federal government machinery to dismantle chunks of the inner cities, the mandate being improved communities for the common good. Sometimes it worked as intended. In Atlantic City, bulldozed land sat vacant for years. So much for good intentions.
Humphrey lost the '68 election by a razor-thin margin to Richard Nixon. LBJ went back to his Texas ranch and died of a heart condition in 1973 at age 65. A few years later, the tide for organized gambling came in for Atlantic City and altered the landscape forever. One place, though, hasn't budged. There's now a modern convention center at the gateway to the city, but the old fortress on the Boardwalk still beats back the years.
Jim Waltzer's Tales of South Jersey, co-authored by Tom Wilk, is published by Rutgers University Press.
Atlantic City has always had a special place in our growing up. We referred to it as "the shore" or "going down the shore", This was an annual or semi annual pilgrimage of many Philadelphians. One of the earliest photos I have of myself with my sister is with my father crouched down helping me feed the pigeons on the Boardwalk near the Strand Hotel. My father is wearing a nice suit and sweater vest, I am in a hat and a one piece zip up snow suit. My sister is wearing a warm sweater. Both of us are wearing typical white baby shoes. It must have been either early spring or early fall. Nicely dressed people some in overcoats and high heals are walking the boards, passing by the Strand Restaurant. I must have been one year old and my sister three. Cars didn’t have air-conditioning in my youth and when we drove home from the shore in the summer with the windows opened we encountered the smell of the mash from one of the Philly distilleries located on the Delaware river.There was a choice of bridges, but mostly I remember we took the Tacony-Palmyra which was closest to our section of the city or the Benjamin Franklin if were were going by way of center city.The Walt Whitman Bridge wouldn't be open to traffic until 1957. The Tacony was a drawbridge and it had this marvelous humming sound when your car crossed from the asphalt part on to the metal section. Before the Atantic City Expressway was opened one traveled on either the White Horse or the Black Horse Pike. Both sides of the road had vendors selling fresh corn and tomatoes harvested from nearby farms. We always approached Atlantic City via Egg Harbor which smelled like rotten eggs. We knew we were nearer our destination when we spotted the Goodyear Blimp in the air over the ocean or saw the planes trailing banners advertising the diving horse at Steel Pier or suntan lotion. Around this time in our trip the car’s radiator would threaten to overheat and we would join the line of cars cooling off along the sides of the highway. We often stayed at a guest house owned by my uncl Sol’s aunt whom we endearingly called “Tanta”. This was on Pacific Avenue near the inlet. Tanta's Guest House offered the smell of mould and a host of little silver bugs darting across the old wallpaper. There was a great porch with green painted rocking chairs. Tanta's Guest House had what was called a common kitchen for all of the families to share. It was located only a few blocks from the boardwalk, so as soon as we checked in, we grabbed our chairs, blankets, cooler and umbrella and headed for the beach. The beach was fascinating. Walking from the boardwalk to the spot we selected was a big trek for a little guy and the sand really burned the bottom of my feet. I would return to Tanta’s with tar on the soles of my feet which was very difficult to clean off. I had sand in my shoes for days after coming home to Philly. It seemed to me that my Grandmother's vocation was to proyect me from the hazards of the ocean. She would watch me like a hawk. She was my personal lifeguard when I went near the water. I remember being afraid of the waves for many years. The beach was a wonderland filled with little sand crabs you could play with and shells that housed the sound of the waves inside. We took these shells back and showed our friends how they could hear the ocean. Ice cream salesmen shouted “Heeya, ice cream and ices” shlepping big white coolers with a big leather strap. The ice cream and ices were kept cold by dried ice . These ice cream salesmen wore shoes which I always thought incongruous on the beach. There was never a shortage of popsicle sticks that we could collect, wash off in the water and make into woven trays. But no matter what I put in my mouth it always had sand on it. At the end of the day we would go to a restaurant quite often my grandfather would treat us to dinner at Hackney’s or Captain Starn's. I don’t remember what I ate although it was always called a child’s portion. I’ll never forget the lines waiting to get a table, lines that seemed to wind from out on the ocean around the block and then up stairs past aquariums of live lobsters which we never ate as they weren't kosher, not that any of those restaurants were kosher to begin with. And when that ritual was finally over the excitement would begin. That's when we would "walk the boards". Tand the bulesqu house that advertised its taklents with the line “Seeing is believing”. he boardwalk was the most interesting place in the world. Salt water taffy that paved the way to dental destruction. Soft ice cream. Whatever kids were with us that is my sister and I and any others would all be given a little pocket money and off we would go each according to his budget and his desires. There was the penny arcades. A movie made by cards flipping in a black box for a penny and machine guns that zeroed in on jap planes and penny machines with mounted rifles that your fired at objects, like ducks and even people marching idiotically acroos your field of vision. Fruit drink that spouted from the brass pillars also a penny. On the piersI think Steeple chase pier of Million Dollaer Pier beneath a monumental bilboard of some smiling idiot whos teeth reminded me of an orange peel (I would often imitate that smile with an orange peel at home. there were more sophisticated games of skill with baseballs and wooden milk bottles and there were plenty of “rides”. And where were our parents during this hour of absolute paradise? They didn’t have any extra money to spend on themselves so they walked and talked. Looked in the windows of the many auction houses. There was always a fixed place where we would join them. Like outside conventin hall with its massive projectors sitting right there on the floor of the boardwalk that beamed light into the sky that could be seen for miles and the marquess advertising the ice-scapades. Or opposite one of the landmark hotels like the the Traymore or the Haddon-Hall or the Dennis near where our grandmothers sat in the rolling chairs in their fine fur stoles and Jewely and gossipped in Yiddish. parkedtarget practice
Atlantic City hosted LBJ and company in 1964 and it was not an artistic success
When the Democrats Came to Town
By Jim Waltzer
The Democrats were coming. The Democrats were coming.
Lyndon Baines Johnson was seashore-bound and preparing for the capper of his long, vibrant, political career: his party's nomination for President of the United States. It was the summer of 1964, and the world was heating up.
LBJ, of course, was already the commander-in-chief, having succeeded the slain John F. Kennedy the preceding November. The tall (is there any other kind?) Texan had energy and expertise to spare, and an ambitious agenda for the nation. He planned to wage a war on poverty. Expand his predecessor's civil rights efforts. Check the advance of Communism. He was outsize, crafty. He could play Congress like a banjo. He knew well the uses of executive power and persuasion.
His Republican opponent, Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater, had already been labeled trigger-happy and posed no real competition. But these were tricky times. Three weeks earlier, Johnson himself had upped the ante in Vietnam by ordering a substantial American response to the Gulf of Tonkin incident. The stage was set for him to emerge, finally, from Kennedy's shadow, but he was leery of public passion for the martyred president stealing the show.
The Democratic minions launched their opening ceremonies on Aug. 24 in Atlantic City, chosen for no small reason due to Johnson's close friendship with New Jersey Governor Richard Hughes. Inside cavernous Convention Hall, the placards of delegates bobbed like buoys in the ocean. Soon, scoreboard-size photos of FDR, JFK, Harry S. Truman, and LBJ sandwiched the exhortation "Let us continue." Balloons would fill the air.
Outside, things were less festive. Supporters of the Freedom Democratic Party sat in the rain at Boardwalk Plaza and held signs citing the three civil rights workers who had been murdered in Mississippi earlier in the summer. The FDP faithful had brought a firebombed car to town to show how some blacks were treated down South when they tried to register to vote.
Beyond the plaza, an aging Atlantic City was exposed to the nation. The camera no longer loved the city (quite the opposite) whose infrastructure was incapable of meeting the demands of the moment. Hotel switchboards and air-conditioning sagged, leaving delegates, politicos, and media types moist with outrage. Worse, they were paying premium rates. They vented their collective spleen in print and over the airwaves.
In the arena, though, unity and accommodation prevailed. Vice-Presidential nominee Hubert Humphrey brokered a deal that gave the Freedom Democratic Party two at-large votes to supplement those of the 24 all-white delegates from Mississippi. Johnson, however, eventually was nominated by acclamation, so vote tallies were unnecessary.
A film highlighting LBJ's career was on tap, as was one about John F. Kennedy, and the candidate and his handlers were careful to not arouse resentment -- the Johnson piece ran first. Indeed, the Kennedy presentation would have been a tough act to follow; Robert F. Kennedy, tears in his eyes, received a 22-minute ovation before he could even introduce the film about JFK. Later, he quoted Shakespeare in referring to his late brother: "When he shall die, take him and cut him into stars and he shall make the face of heaven so fine that all the world will be in love with night and pay no worship to the garish sun."
On the final day of the 1964 Democratic National Convention, President Lyndon Johnson celebrated his 56th birthday by accepting the nomination. Four years later, Vietnam was a quagmire and LBJ announced he would not run again. Robert Kennedy sought the job but was shot and killed just as momentum had swung his way. His party's convention in Chicago was a nasty affair of riots and suppression, one of the low notes in American history.
It was a changed country by then, and a changed Atlantic City, too. LBJ's urban redevelopment initiatives had created federal government machinery to dismantle chunks of the inner cities, the mandate being improved communities for the common good. Sometimes it worked as intended. In Atlantic City, bulldozed land sat vacant for years. So much for good intentions.
Humphrey lost the '68 election by a razor-thin margin to Richard Nixon. LBJ went back to his Texas ranch and died of a heart condition in 1973 at age 65. A few years later, the tide for organized gambling came in for Atlantic City and altered the landscape forever. One place, though, hasn't budged. There's now a modern convention center at the gateway to the city, but the old fortress on the Boardwalk still beats back the years.
Jim Waltzer's Tales of South Jersey, co-authored by Tom Wilk, is published by Rutgers University Press.