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BEmpire book


When HBO wanted to develop a crime series with the unenviable task of following "The Sopranos," they turned to Martin Scorsese to produce it. The great director chose to base the show on a history book by Nelson Johnson, BOARDWALK EMPIRE, first published in 2002 and now re-released in paperback.

When people hear the name Atlantic City they most likely think of gambling and casinos. But probably not many know that it was the birthplace of the American Mafia. On the Boardwalk today is a picture of a smiling Big Al Capone in a snazzy one-piece bathing suit on one of its historical markers. Few cities can boast of that. In just 30 years of the 19th century, Atlantic City went from being a 10-mile strip of sand dunes to a city based entirely upon two things: tourism and vice.

Nelson Johnson, a New Jersey politician and judge, decided to write the hidden history of Atlantic City; the result is this fascinating and meticulously researched book. Decades-long visitors to the resort, as well as first-time travelers, will find it a good read. He based BOARDWALK EMPIRE on an amazing fact. For the first 70 years of the 20th century, Atlantic City was controlled by just three political bosses who were also, for lack of a better term, gangsters: Louis "the Commodore" Kuehnle, Enoch Johnson, aka "Nucky" (no relation to the author) and Frank "Hap" Farley.

We have often heard of how gangsters historically corrupt elected officials and the police with bribes and payoffs. Atlantic City was different, though, because the gangsters and the Republican Party was one and the same organization. Atlantic City was a one-party city for decades. And here's the really odd thing: the vast majority of the public did not seem to mind because the Republican ward system was effective not only in turning out votes, but also in meeting the needs of the people. Nucky fed the poor. Eventually, the corrupt Republican leaders of the city would dominate and control the entire state of New Jersey.

Johnson takes us back to the earliest days of the resort, when it was filled with more flies and mosquitoes than people. Atlantic City became the first resort that viewed working class people, mostly from Philly in need of a little diversion after a six-day work week in the factories, as vacationers. The booming resort sought to give the workers what they wanted, which could be summed up in three words: booze, gambling and sex. Atlantic City was born.

The only business on the tiny island was tourism, and the cardinal rule was that the tourists had to go home happy so they would return with their cash the following season. Johnson quotes a local man who said it best: "If the people who came to town had wanted Bible readings, we'd have given 'em that. But nobody ever asked for Bible readings. They wanted booze, broads and gambling, so that's what we gave 'em."

By the 1890s, a Philadelphia newspaper identified 100 brothels on the island, but the cops looked the other way. As long as the payoffs were made to the local Republican machine, racketeers could operate in the open, which is amazing considering that this was Victorian America. Hookers and illegal casinos, and selling booze on Sundays (also unlawful at the time), were vital parts of the town's economy. When a reformist governor threatened to send the state militia in to clean up Atlantic City, boss "Commodore" Kuehnle reassured the local merchants. Johnson writes, "...If the governor did send down the militia, then Kuehnle would have the local whores greet them at the station."

Finally, a way to end war! Of course the militia never arrived, but then America went totally insane after World War I and passed the 19th Amendment prohibiting alcohol. This ushered in the glory years of Atlantic City, which already had seen the rise of huge Beaux Art and architecturally beautiful hotels that lined the Boardwalk like giant sand castles. "Prohibition didn't happen in Atlantic City," according to one expert. There was no need for speakeasies, booze was sold openly, and the famous beach became a major trafficking route for East Coast contraband.

At this time, Atlantic City was ruled by its most flamboyant "decadent monarch" in the person of Enoch "Nucky" Johnson. The author writes, "In his prime, he strode the Boardwalk in evening clothes complete with spats, patent leather shoes, a walking stick, and a red carnation in his lapel. Nucky rode around town in a chauffer-driven, powder blue Rolls Royce limousine...had a retinue of servants to satisfy his every want, and an untaxed income of more than $500,000 a year." He was also a virtual underboss of the Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel New York crime family, the founding fathers of the Mafia. When, in May 1929, organized crime groups from around the country decided to meet to create a nationwide "syndicate" and divide up the turf, there was no question where they were going to hold their meeting. Atlantic City was a wide-open town for gangsters, and Nucky was the perfect host, both gracious and generous.

The repeal of Prohibition and the changing American leisure and travel patterns after World War II sent Atlantic City into a long period of decline. And in reading these pages, Johnson's narrative achieves a bit of a wistful feel. But still, the graft, corruption and one-party rule continued unabated until 1971, by which time the once famous resort had nearly become a crumbling ruin.

Johnson takes his history straight through the battle to pass legalized gambling in Atlantic City during the late 1970s and the early decades of the casinos. He is firm in his belief that not only did gambling save the resort from certain death, but it has the potential to make Atlantic City great again. Some might argue this, pointing out that the resort might have been built on a vice, but it is still depending upon a vice to survive. Legalized gambling has hardly been the panacea that proponents promised. Some of the meanest streets of America in terms of poverty can be found just blocks from the casinos. And at night, hookers, another part of the resort's heritage, ply their trades on those sometimes dangerous streets, often within sight of the glittering neon casinos.

Modern-day Atlantic City is filled with ironies like that and ghosts galore. Existing like an afterthought within the shadow of a huge casino tower is the Ritz Hotel, now a condo, which was once the most exclusive spot on the Boardwalk. Nucky, who at one time ruled Atlantic City from the entire ninth floor of the Ritz, would be happy to see the huge casino next door, but extremely disappointed that he was not getting his share of the take....

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