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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
The summer millions dwindle to winter thousands, and the pace of Atlantic City perceptibly slows down after the annual September beauty pageant. It is then that the city wins its reputation as a health resort. To benefit from the mild climate and healthful sea air come elderly folk, who find respite from cold winters on the warm boardwalk and in the chatty living rooms of scores of rooming and boarding houses. The city becomes more sophisticated as a more urban group of business and professional people arrive to catch an off-season vacation. On the winter holidays and during the frequent conventions, however, there is a sharp, sudden return to the carnival summertime spirit, disconcerting indeed to the entrenched oldsters.
Backstage of the boardwalk, there is a gradual falling from the splendor of Atlantic City's front. Narrow side streets leading from the beach are crowded with phalanxes of small hotels, boarding houses, restaurants, and saloons. The majority are frame buildings and, unlike the boardwalk, recall that Atlantic City was founded in mid-Victorian times.
The first longitudinal street that parallels the boardwalk is Pacific Avenue, a heavy traffic thoroughfare. Here, among restaurants and small retail shops, stand many of Atlantic City's civic and religious buildings. A feature of this street is the jitney service, a steady stream of touring cars that pick up passengers at designated corners and carry them to any destination on Pacific Avenue for 10¢. For an additional 10¢ the driver will deviate into side streets.
Atlantic Avenue, second street from the boardwalk and paralleling it, is the city's chief business section. This is the one street where visitors can forget that they are in America's leading seashore resort, for it is much like the main streets of other cities of the same size. It is broad, and its many large buildings, including the city's one metropolitan department store, impart an air of mature solidity. Westward Atlantic Avenue abruptly becomes the Chelsea residential section, where large villas and attractive bungalows are fronted with well-tended lawns.
North of Atlantic Avenue the city deteriorates into a dingy section somewhat improved by recent slum clearance and street repairing. This is the Northside, home of Atlantic City's Negro inhabitants -- 23 percent of the total population and, next to that of Newark, the most important Negro population of the State. They form a reservoir of cheap labor for the hotels, amusement piers, restaurants, riding academies, and private homes.
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