Sun shines on A.C.'s latest reinvention

There's music in the air on the Atlantic City Boardwalk, where Lenny Johnson and Vera Topinka are sharing an impromptu dance outside Bally's Wild West.

"The world's a mess," Lenny, who's 82, explains. "But here in Atlantic City," adds Vera, 77, "it's a lovely day."

Vera, a retired keypunch operator from Toms River, is right: The summer is young, the sea breeze is bracing, and the sun plays across the fanciful facades of Boardwalk landmarks. Even the saw-toothed slab of the extinct Trump Plaza is aglow.

The Plaza was one of four casinos that folded in 2014. The closures threw thousands of people out of work and sowed deep doubts about Atlantic City's future.

But that was last year.

"This summer, we wait and see," says Habib Ahmed, who has been pushing a Boardwalk rolling chair for seven years. "This city is creating something new."

Ahmed, 64, is vigorous ("This is good exercise"), personable, and up on the latest Boardwalk buzz. He emigrated from Bangladesh to New York decades ago, lives in Atlantic City, and waits for customers outside the soon-to-be-former Pier Shops at Caesar's.

That's the famously floundering high-end mall that Philadelphia development impresario Bart Blatstein is transforming into an entertainment and shopping extravaganza called the Playground.

"Atlantic City is like home to me," Blatstein said during a preview of the Playground on Thursday, hours after the New Jersey Senate approved a fiscal rescue/reform package for the city of 40,000.

"I'm so proud of this project," Blatstein said, adding, "I hope this is part of [the city's] rebirth."

Say this about A.C.: The place never stops trying to be reborn, rebranded, and new again.

Rather like Madonna, whose "Rebel Heart" tour arrives at Boardwalk Hall on Oct. 3, the city is a relentless reinvention project in progress. Even when it stumbles, it gets back up and says, Look at me!

"We hope for better," Alit Rama, 55, says, standing outside Venezia Pizza, the shop he opened three years ago on Ventnor Avenue's polyglot south end. A native of Albania who lives in Galloway Township, he says business may pick up "if they open Revel again."

That won't happen this year, according to Glenn Straub, Revel's colorful new owner. But given the soap-operatic spectacle of the city's most colossal casino property (and that of the Showboat, its stodgier but equally shut-down neighbor), who knows what might happen next?

The optics of these two closed casinos, particularly Revel's towering sci-fi curtains of mirrored glass, create a somewhat dystopian ambience on the Boardwalk's northern end.

But at the nearby Absecon Lighthouse - a historic treasure, with incredible views for visitors who brave its 228 iron steps - "we're expecting a really good summer," executive director Jean Muchanic says.

After what she calls last year's gambling-market "correction," Muchanic adds, "there's nowhere to go but up."

"So far, so good," says Jeff George, owner of Atlantic City Cruises, whose family has been in the business since 1969.

"After the casinos closed, it killed us. It was the worst ever. But June is right back to where we were, and [one day this week] we sold 99 tickets for dolphin-watching."

George's 130-passenger boat, Cruisin' 1, operates from Gardner's Basin, a touristy but charming enclave of shops, restaurants, and attractions on the north end of Absecon Island.

At the Back Bay Ale House, the crowd is young and local. Gina McDonald, who lives in the city, is the manager.

"What's the mood in Atlantic City? The mood is good," she says. "We've been through worse."

Inexplicably for a city with dreams of redefining itself as an entertainment capital, the summer concert calendar is heavy on vintage acts such as Whitesnake and Toto.

But last week's announcement of an Aug. 16 beach concert featuring Maroon 5 at least brought current sounds in the mix.

So will the July 17 return of Sand Blast, the gay-circuit party. The celebrity DJs who sometimes spin at sleek clubs at the Borgata and the Golden Nugget attest to the fact that A.C. is not just for older folks.

"Our customers are still here. The clubs are still packed," says Zach Seidman, a partner in a new firm promoting "AC Daylife," a Saturday party that began June 27 at the retro, non-casino Chelsea Hotel.

Walking on the boards again, I decide to take in a free concert at Boardwalk Hall, where Steven Ball plays a venerable pipe organ billed as the largest musical instrument on earth.

"It's truly a worldwide cultural attraction," says Ball, a respected musician who's also in charge of a renovation project for the pipe organ.

Silent for nearly 70 years, the instrument has dwindled to perhaps 20 percent of its power. But it still fills the cavernous hangar of Boardwalk Hall, where a mostly gray-haired, appreciative crowd of about 50 listen.

"There's a cultural electricity here that makes Atlantic City really extraordinary and cool right now," Ball says. "There are all these interesting ideas about how to change it and begin the future, which I predict is bright."

Ball's mission is to restore the pipe organ; about $2 million of the $16 million needed has been raised to bring back the sound in its original awesomeness.

In Atlantic City this summer, even pieces of the past are being reborn.

Source: Philly.com