Atlantic City, New Jersey, and Ocean City, Maryland, are two of the major resorts on the Eastern coast of the United States. Both are in Mid-Atlantic states.
Both places have quite small resident populations, but this is vastly outweighed by the hundreds of thousands of vacationers and day visitors. Atlantic City has a population of about 40,000 and 30 million visitors. Ocean City has a population of about 7000, a vacationer population of about 35,000 and 8 million visitors.
Atlantic City
Atlantic City, New Jersey, is on Absecon Island and is somewhat bigger than Ocean City. It is known especially for its casinos, although many others go to promenade along the boardwalk or sit on the beaches and swim in the surf.
Atlantic City is closer to big urban areas than Ocean City, being just south of New York. Its first hotel dates from 1853. It was built in the knowledge that the railroad was just about to be built there. In 1854 the Camden and Atlantic Railroad train service began, at first linked to Philadelphia. By 1874, almost 500,000 passengers a year were coming to Atlantic City by rail.
The early idea was to develop Atlantic City as a health resort.
The first boardwalk was built in 1870, and over the years it was extended until it covered about 7 miles from Atlantic City through Ventnor and Margate.
By 1878, the Philadelphia and Atlantic City Railway brought more tourists, and caused a boom in hotel building.
By the 1920s tourism was booming. When the government introduced prohibition of alcohol, smuggling to the hotels of Atlantic City made it even more popular. The city then called itself as "The World's Playground". It became a center for gangsters who developed huge empires base on selling liquor and gambling.
After World War II, the nature of tourism changed, and what had once been a wealthy city saw many people leave and Atlantic City become a place of poverty. People decided to go to Miami and the Bahamas where the weather was more reliably hot and sunny.
The new aircraft industry made this change possible.
In order to revitalise the city, it was decided to legalize casinos, whose indoor entertainments were not dependent on the weather. They were the first legal casinos in the eastern United States when they opened in 1978.
This was successful at first, although there are many other casinos nowadays in other cities, and so Atlantic City is once more struggling. Nevertheless,
Atlantic City still calls itself the "Gambling Capital of the East Coast," and has eight large casinos with nearly 30 million visitors.
Ocean City
During the summer, Ocean City becomes the second biggest place in Maryland (after Baltimore).
The site of Ocean City is a sand spit protruding into the Atlantic Ocean. It was bought by English colonist Thomas Fenwick from the Native Americans during the early days of colonization. In 1869, a businessman called Isaac Coffin built a beach-front cottage and opened it to paying guests. In these early days, people arrived by stagecoach and ferry. Soon, other cottages were built.
The first hotel was called the Atlantic Hotel and it opened on Independence Day, July 4, 1875. But the real development had to await the arrival of the railroad. This made it far easier for people to reach the coast from large cities such as Philadelphia and Baltimore. The railroad arrived in 1881. It brought tourists and also took back fresh fish to the cities.
In 1952, the completion of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, and in 1964 the completion of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel meant that Ocean City was readily accessible by automobile. This was when Ocean City became one of the largest vacation areas of the East Coast.
By the 1970s tall apartment blocks were being built to provide accommodation for staying tourists. Over 15,000 units were built.
Because Ocean City is on a sand spit, just as it was formed by the longshore movement of sand along the coast, so it can lose sand along the coast. This has meant a constant battle to keep the beaches replenished with sand.
Ocean City is currently about 9 miles long from north to south, and is a beach-side complex of hotels, motels, apartment houses and shopping centers.
The Ocean City Boardwalk is named for the wooden walkway that was constructed behind the beach about a century ago. At that time, people did far less sitting on the beach, and far more walking about. The long skirts of the time meant that a good, clean, firm surface needed to be provided. The boardwalk was the equivalent of the concrete 'promenades' being built beside all European beaches at the time.
The downtown neighborhood is called the Old Town and still has some Victorian style buildings.
The town is still famous for fishing, much of it recreational. It calls itself the "White Marlin Capital of the World." During the summer season the service workers needed are college students combined with temporary immigrants from Ireland Eastern Europe.
