Atlantic City: A Boardwalk for Hotel Carpets, Rum Row and a Food Desert

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Atlantic City began as a summer retreat for the Lenape before Dr. Jonathan Pitney promoted the barrier island in the 1850s as a health resort, at a time when doctors believed in miasma theory and prescribed sea air. With Samuel Richards he built the Camden and Atlantic Railroad from Philadelphia, and when trains arrived in 1854 the 600-room United States Hotel spread across 14 acres. In 1870 hotel owner Jacob Keim and railroad conductor Alexander Boardman proposed the first boardwalk to keep sand off expensive hotel carpets, and by 1874 almost half a million passengers a year came by rail. Reinforced concrete hotels such as Josiah White III's Marlborough-Blenheim followed in 1905, and Mayor Edward Bader added an airport, Convention Hall and the Miss America Pageant in 1921.

Under political boss Enoch "Nucky" Johnson the city ignored Prohibition, and in May 1929 Al Capone, Meyer Lansky and Lucky Luciano met there to organize a national crime syndicate. Highways such as the Garden State Parkway, home air conditioning and cheap flights then drained the resort trade. New Jersey voters rejected statewide casinos in 1974 but approved them for Atlantic City in 1976, and Resorts International opened in May 1978. Competition from Connecticut's Foxwoods and from Pennsylvania followed, Superstorm Sandy struck in October 2012 with a record low pressure of 943 millibars, and in 2014 Showboat, Revel, Trump Plaza and the Atlantic Club all closed.

• The original boardwalk was taken apart and stored in a barn every winter.
• Saltwater taffy got its name in 1883 when candy merchant David Bradley sold stock soaked by a storm flood.
• Liquor ships anchored past the three-mile limit on Rum Row while fast boats ran cargo into the city's marshy inlets.
• Ruth Hoskins' 1929 Monopoly board mapped city streets, and its cheap Baltic and Mediterranean avenues sat in redlined Black neighborhoods.
• Despite about $3 billion a year in gaming revenue, the city went nearly 28 years without a full grocery store, and the state committed $20 million to Renaissance Plaza.