Atlantic City Guide

'Everything dies baby that's a fact
But maybe everything that dies someday comes back
Put your makeup on, fix your hair up pretty
and meet me tonight in Atlantic City'

The lyrics of local musician Bruce Springsteen sum up the ever-troubled gambling town of Atlantic City - it ruled, it died and it's wearily struggling to come back. But plucky revival efforts to spruce the place up can't hide the fact that Atlantic City is an overdeveloped, disheveled, aging beauty who had it all and let it go to waste.

At it's height the city was the vacation destination for playboys and starlets, but the vestiges of these high times are crumbling beside bold new casinos. The Boardwalk - the world's first - has become an odd collection of fortress-like casinos punctuated by T-shirt stands and gyros stands. After years of experimenting with gambling, the city is still waiting to see how the dice fall.

Population: 38,000
Area: 1147 sq mi (2,940 sq km)
State: New Jersey
Time Zone: Eastern Time (GMT/UTC minus 5 hours)
Telephone area code: 609

Orientation

The simple grid system makes navigation a breeze in Atlantic City and each block consists of 100 numbers, so addresses are easy to find. From the Boardwalk, Pacific, then Atlantic, Arctic and Baltic Avenues all run northeast-southwest in parallel with the shoreline. Most of the cross-streets are named after states.

Absecon Island is 6mi (10km) from the New Jersey mainland and connected to it by the Atlantic City Expressway. The island is 10mi (16km) long from north to south and Atlantic City occupies a little less than half of it. The town is built on a grid system occupying 12 sq mi (31 sq km) and its main streets emanate from the Boardwalk on the city's southern shore.

Atlantic City international airport is about 10mi (16km) west of the city center. The train station is close to the Atlantic City Expressway, 5 blocks from the Boardwalk. The bus depot is nearby, just 3 blocks from the beach.