Brisket paradise: Remembering Rose and Jack Zawid
You could smell the unmistakable aroma of simmering brisket, roasted chicken and matzo ball soup all the way up and down Kingston Avenue in Atlantic City. Around 1985, I began writing a monthly column called “Backstage” for Frances Freedman’s much-missed Atlantic City...
Christmas Eve greetings from space
Remembering the 1968 message that gripped the world It was Christmas Eve 1968 and the crew of the first manned space flight to the Moon was almost ready to come home. Astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and William Anders were orbiting the Moon aboard Apollo 8, the...
Remembering when the Showboat was part of the local gaming universe
Remembering When Recently, a friend of mine asked if what is currently called Showboat Hotel Atlantic City would one day re-acquire the gaming license it voluntarily forfeited when it closed in that darkest of casino-era years, 2014. In an instant, I mentally accessed...
Headliners who became lounge acts
There’s an old show business adage that says casino lounges are either for performers on their way up, or on their way down. There was a time in Las Vegas and Atlantic City when that was true. Comics Don Rickles and Shecky Green first worked the Vegas lounges, then...
The Jim Whelan Boardwalk Hall is anything but conventional
Since it opened in 1929, Atlantic City’s Convention Hall, renamed Jim Whelan Boardwalk Hall in honor of the late mayor in 2017, the iconic venue has presented everything from The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, to the Democratic National Convention and the Miss...
