HBO’s ‘Empire’ renews interest in Atlantic City
BY DAVE HOEKSTRA dhoekstra@suntimes.com April 30, 2011 7:21PM
Steve Buscemi in HBO's hit series "Boardwalk Empire."
IF YOU GO
GETTING THERE: Low-cost carrier Spirit Airlines started offering daily flights between O’Hare Airport and Atlantic City, N.J., in March. Note that Spirit charges $25 to use the overhead luggage bin and that the airline moved from Midway Airport to O’Hare in 2000 — something I found out when I arrived at Midway for my flight. Spirit’s Atlantic City service can be an economical way to get to Philadelphia, too. Ten trains depart daily from Atlantic City to Philly, which is a 50-minute drive. Spirit also is a good bet for Dave Matthews fans headed to Atlantic City for the June 24-26 kickoff of “The Dave Matthews Band Caravan.” I priced the 6:40 a.m. June 23 departure from O’Hare at $104 and the 6:45 a.m. June 27 return at $76, not including taxes and fees; spirit.com.
KNIFE & FORK: Near the boardwalk at 3600 Atlantic Ave. Open daily for lunch and dinner; (609) 344-1133,
knifeandforkinn.com.
MORE ONLINE: Read about the Beatles’ 1964 visit to Atlantic City at blogs.suntimes.com/hoekstra.
Article Extras
Updated: August 27, 2011 12:32AM
ATLANTIC CITY. N.J. — There is a connection between Atlantic City and Chicago.
And it is not necessarily the mob.
Atlantic City was designed by Richard Osborne, a civil engineer trained in Chicago as the city spread its big shoulders in the 19th century.
Osborne was a railroad man who in 1853 designed the train trek from Camden, N.J., to Atlantic City, establishing “A.C.” as a resort destination. Osborne also laid out Atlantic City’s grid, naming each street for a state in an attempt to build tourism. Osborne had a wacky Chicago sense of humor. Pacific Avenue is the street closest to the Atlantic Ocean. Philadelphia salesman Charles Darrow noticed the stately grid on a getaway to Atlantic City and created the board game Monopoly.
Atlantic City (pop. 40,000) is seeing a bump in tourism. New casinos and upscale malls are being built. In 2009, ForbesTraveler.com named Atlantic City the top American boardwalk, beating out the likes of Coney Island, N.Y., and Venice Beach, Calif.
More relevant music shows are being booked since my last visit in 1987, when I interviewed the late Peter Allen. “Mr. Bicoastal” was singing in the lovely Copa Room of the since-razed Sands Hotel. This time, I saw Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band at the historic Boardwalk Hall. Seger is nothing like Peter Allen.
The success of the HBO series “Boardwalk Empire” also is attracting tourists.
In the series, the great Steve Buscemi portrays Enoch “Nucky” Johnson, the Atlantic City mobster who ruled the roost between 1910 and 1941. In the 2002 Boardwalk Empire book that inspired the series, author Nelson Johnson wrote that Nucky was the state’s most powerful Republican and drafted key racketeers into the party.
You can walk in Nucky’s heavy shoes at the Knife & Fork Inn. The steak and seafood house at the intersection of Atlantic and Pacific avenues opened in 1912 as a men’s speakeasy and dining club. During Prohibition, regulars continued to drink at the bar (now the 40-seat Hearth Room). Nucky was a Knife & Fork regular.
The mafia’s tools during initiations are known as “the knife and the gun.”
Current co-owner Maureen Shay won’t go there. She doesn’t know how the Knife & Fork got its name.
“We have records going back to [1927] when it was a restaurant,” Shay said before a Saturday night crowd settled in. “But there’s very little we could find when it was a private club.”
Shay is married to Frank Doughtery, 45, the fourth-generation owner of Dock’s Oyster House, the only Atlantic City restaurant older than Knife & Fork.
“They did mention us on ‘Boardwalk Empire,’” Shay said, “and people have been coming around to see.”
“Boardwalk Empire” is filmed on a set in Brooklyn, N.Y. But Atlantic City still has some real-life Nucky sites, such as The Ritz Condominiums, 2700 Boardwalk at Atlantic Ave. Opened in 1921 as the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, this oceanfront property was Nucky’s headquarters. The Tropicana hotel and casino is next door.
Some of the 1980 Burt Lancaster-Susan Sarandon movie “Atlantic City” was filmed on Knife & Fork’s terrace.
“Frank Sinatra and Bob Hope came here way back,” Shay said. “I’m sure Sinatra kept in character.”
I had a superb pork chop special (spinach, goat cheese, roasted red peppers with a chorizo filling, $28) in the second-floor main dining room. Back in Nucky’s day, the first floor was the tavern and men went upstairs to eat — and gamble — in the private room. An adjacent “ladies lounge” was the only space in the joint where women were allowed.
These days, Shay’s 12-year-old niece Maddie is the adorable bread girl.
Cuisine also has changed dramatically since Nucky’s time. “The only thing we have kept from that period is the lobster Thermidor [2¼ pounds, $45],” Shay said.
The restaurant underwent a major facelift in 2005 but maintained its original look. Glistening brass knives and forks adorn the restaurant’s exterior.
To find the real meat and potatoes on Atlantic City history, check out Princeton Antiques Book Shop, 2917 Atlantic ( princetonantiques.com). I was attracted to this hoarder’s paradise by the sidewalk bookstand. You buy a book outside and pay proprietor Robert Ruffolo Jr. inside. His father bought the building in 1966. It stocks more than 225,000 books.
“We mainly find and sell out-of-print books for people all over the world,” Ruffolo said, sitting between mountains of books. “I just sold a Count of Monte Cristo to a New York Times reporter. She paid several thousand dollars for a copy that was printed in 1859.”
She must have had a good night in the Atlantic City casinos.
Ruffolo also has albums filled with 20,000-plus black-and-white photos of historic Atlantic City.
“There’s a lot of interest in the Nucky Johnson time period,” he said. “Before ‘Boardwalk Empire,’ Nucky was a little-known politician who did a lot of good things for the city. They made his life more colorful than it was.”
Atlantic City is still colorful enough.
Information for this article was gathered on a research trip sponsored in part by the Atlantic City Convention & Visitors Authority.
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