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Originally published in 1939
Some of this information may no longer be current and in that case is presented for historical interest only.
Edited by GET NJ, COPYRIGHT 2003
Atlantic City is an amusement factory, operated on the straight-line, mass production pattern. The belt is the boardwalk along which each specialist adds his bit to assemble the finished product, the departing visitor, sated, tanned, and bedecked with souvenirs.
The boardwalk is unique. Sixty feet wide for much of its length, it is of steel and concrete construction overlaid with pine planking in herringbone pattern. Twenty miles of planks are used each year to keep it in repair. Along its four-mile length the city side is lined with huge hotels, broken by blocks of shops, restaurants, exhibit rooms, booths, auction houses, an occasional bank and even a private park. Architecturally the motifs are mixed, but functionally they unite in presenting a glittering, luxurious front.
The shops are a melange. Like the super-salesmen who operate them, they sell anything -- Ming vases from China, maple furniture from Grand Rapids, laces from the Levant, jewelry from Newark, shawls from Persia, and ladies' ready-to-wear from New York. Confectionery shops, where one of Atlantic City's famous products, salt water taffy, is made and sold, radiate a sickly sweet fragrance among motion picture houses, circus side shows, frozen custard emporiums, shooting galleries, restaurants, and hot dog and hamburger stands. Commercially, the boardwalk achieves its greatest dignity in the permanent display shops of leading national advertisers and the smart shops studding the first floors of the large hotels.
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