Atlantic City destinations put on a new face
ATLANTIC CITY - It's 4:30 on Friday afternoon and inside Resorts Atlantic City the weekend begins like it does in all casinos: with an occasional cheer from the craps table, the heads-down consternation of card players, the click and roll of a little white ball on the roulette wheel, and the tintinnabulation of slot machines.
My wife and I are sitting in 25 Hours, a neon-infused bar with blue-and-white light fixtures that swirl from the ceiling like giant hard candies. Our bartender, John Timmreck, is a slim, friendly fellow, and like all Resorts employees, he's wearing a black button with the number 30 to signify the number of years since the casino opened - the first in Atlantic City.
"You might have noticed that I have a special name tag," Timmreck says, leaning forward so we can read that he is a "Resorts Original," one of about 100 employees who have worked at the casino since its beginning. "I couldn't find the exit."
While Timmreck and the Resorts celebrate their decades on the Boardwalk, there is much that is new rising here on Absecon Island, a barrier island where tens of millions have vacationed since the late 1800s. With gambling revenues lagging and competition from new casinos in other Northeast locations, Atlantic City is seeking to replicate the transformation of Las Vegas from strictly a gambling locale to a tourist destination with shopping, dining, and entertainment.
On the bay side of the island, a second gold tower has risen beside Borgata, the glittering casino hotel built in 2003 that is reminiscent of Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino on the south end of the Las Vegas Strip. The new tower is Borgata's The Water Club, a self-described boutique-lifestyle hotel with a 36,000-square-foot spa and five heated swimming pools.
Nearby, the revamped Harrah's this year opened a 47-story hotel tower, a "galleria-style" shopping area, and a vast casino floor with digital touch screens providing visitor information. The swimming pool is surrounded by palm trees beneath a 90-foot geodesic dome, where private cabanas with iPod docking stations and plasma screen TVs are available.
With Harrah's and Borgata as flashy as any casinos we've visited in Vegas and Connecticut, we headed back to the ocean side of the island in search of true Atlantic City character. We strolled the Boardwalk, which ranges from 40 to 60 feet wide and stretches 4 miles.
We lingered by Boardwalk Hall, the arch-roofed 1921 arena known as Convention Hall, the site of Miss America pageants until 2004, when the contest moved to Vegas. Named to the National Register of Historic Places in 1987, the hall was restored in 2001 and has architectural character newer venues can't match. It seats up to 17,500 for concerts - the Rolling Stones played last year, and Jimmy Buffett, Celine Dion, and Madonna are scheduled to appear this year - and hosts boxing matches and the Atlantic Ten men's collegiate basketball tournament.
On the Boardwalk merchants sell everything from funnel cakes, saltwater taffy, and hot dogs, to T-shirts, tattoos, and psychic readings. Mixed in with the simple and the seedy is The Pier Shops at Caesars, an upscale mall jutting into the ocean that boasts Tiffany & Co. and
The city has budgeted $100 million to improve the facades of some of the Boardwalk's older storefronts. Two blocks were renovated last year, and two more are scheduled this year, but a walk down some seedy sections shows they have a long way to go. Bryant Simon, director of American Studies at Temple University and author of "Boardwalk of Dreams: Atlantic City and the Fate of Urban America" (Oxford University, 2006), said the city's unique character is dependent upon this oceanfront walkway.
"I have always thought A.C. is a much more interesting place than Vegas," Simon said. "Why? The Boardwalk. The Boardwalk, to me, beats the Strip any day. . . . It is a cool space that is not quite a street, but not a park, not quite in nature, but close to it."
Boardwalk hotels and casinos are also being transformed. The Quarter at Tropicana casino hotel, a Havana-themed collection of restaurants, nightclubs, shopping, and an
For dining, the casinos offer a vast selection of restaurants, including famous chains and celebrity chefs a la Vegas: Bobby Flay and Wolfgang Puck at Borgata, a Palm and a P.F. Chang's in The Quarter at Tropicana, a House of Blues in Showboat, and a Hard Rock Café in Taj Mahal. There are also the gluttonous gorge-yourself buffets for which casinos are famous. We opted for two cash-only establishments unique to Atlantic City: Chef Vola's, a 64-chair, BYOB, Italian restaurant in the low-ceilinged basement of a nondescript house, and the seemingly always busy White House Sub Shop.
My friend Anthony Pozzi, a South Jersey native, sold me on our dinner choice. "If given one last meal, it would be at Chef Vola's," he said.
Reservations are hard to come by, and we were lucky to get a 9 p.m. table for two on a Friday night. Chef Vola's is popular with celebrities. Louise Esposito, who with her husband, Mike, and their sons, Louis and Mike Jr., has owned the 87-year-old restaurant since 1982, said she'll never forget the night that Jay-Z and Beyonce, Natalie Cole, and James Gandolfini and other cast members of "The Sopranos," were all in the restaurant at the same time.
The waiters recited an overwhelming number of specials. My wife had snapper with lump crabmeat and I had a butterfly-cut parmigiana veal chop, both of them enormous servings that we couldn't finish. After the entree, there was another recitation of the 21 desserts - all Louise Esposito's grandmother's recipes from Italy - including several varieties of cheesecake and tiramisu. We shared a delicious piece of banana cream pie.
The next day for lunch we lined up on Arctic Avenue at the intersection of Mississippi Avenue to get into the White House Sub Shop. The narrow diner-style room is elbow-in-the ribs busy. After a 20-minute wait we took two stools at the counter and shared half of the Famous White House Sub, enough for two. It was very good (and reasonable as well, our check of $8.61 including two Pepsis and chips).
Our final stop was Atlantic City Outlets, The Walk, an outdoor shopping area recently expanded to 100 chain stores. Before 2003, Atlantic City had very little shopping, but on this Saturday the sidewalks were busy.
Unlike the distinctive Boardwalk, The Walk could be anywhere in suburban America. I overheard a woman telling a friend about her Coach handbag. "Oh, no, I didn't get it here," she said. "I got it for $140 at an outlet mall in Charleston, S.C."
Joe Samuel Starnes can be reached at joesamuelstarnes.com.
