How to Like Atlantic City

Recently, my pal Paul Brady called Atlantic City a place that's 'hard to love.' I get that. During a short visit last year for Lonely Planet, I didn't exactly fall in love with Atlantic City either, but I got plenty out of my 35 hours of tracking down the source of all the Monopoly board properties.



Here's a video of the experience:







Using Monopoly as a 'guidebook' to AC, and it wasn't always easy to do, led me away from the casinos into a place where I found local-lifers in love with their home. It led me to used bookstores, old pizza places, lighthouses. The hunt for the Electric Company, actually a modern complex outside the center, almost felt like tracking down a buried treasure.



And also, I had fun.



To be honest, I could live happily if I never made it back to AC (though I felt a night at the Irish Pub was a time-travel experience, unlike anything I've had anywhere in the USA). But by searching out a pre-Trumpian era of AC, and meeting up with those who do love it, made me see it differently.



Sometimes I think that's the main thing travel is for.

76-Second Travel Show: 'Monopoly Travel to Atlantic City'

Episode #043
F E A T U R I N G * 1 8 2* B O N U S * S E C O N D S

Question: Can a Monopoly board be used as a guidebook?

Why yes! In Atlantic City, it can!

Parker Brothers first published Monopoly 75 years ago this year -- it began in various forms decades before as 'Landlord's Game.' Some people don't realize that the color-coded properties encircling continuous layout -- eg Connecticut Avenue, St James Place, Marvin Gardens, Park Place -- are based on real ones in New Jersey's famed seaside beach destination. And with the exception of one -- St Charles Place -- all can be visited, and doing so (sometimes) leads to Atlantic City's best survivors from past-gone eras.

I followed the board around Atlantic City recently. Several locals independently advised that the Baltimore Grill on Atlantic Avenue served 'the best pizza in the world.' It didn't -- and didn't have a grill either -- but I loved the '50s-era throwback. Meanwhile, at the corner of Vermont Ave & Pacific Ave, I peppered the keys of an antique pianola in a 19th-century lighthouse, now surrounded by housing blocks.

But the best stop? Easily St James Place, home to a classic pub and hotel at the Inn at the Irish Pub? Most memorable stay in an American hotel I've had. Like walking into a Little Rascals set, with picks from local estate sales that date to the Depression, lacy curtains blowing in AC-free rooms, slanted floors and -- in my room at least -- an embroidered Norwegian scene hanging opposite an inspirational quote taped onto a paddle.

NYC Gives Away July 4 Show to Jersey

Per the New York Times today, New York City is snubbing its residents by moving the July 4 fireworks from the East River (amidst population-heavy areas of Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens) to the Hudson River. The move gives New Jersey residents -- who don't pay for the fireworks -- a better front-yard look than anyone in New York City (except Nicole Kidman*).

That ain't right.

I want to like Jersey. I really do. It's the most slighted state in the country -- and one of the most tolled (Pennsylvania and Oklahoma are also in the running) -- and I like an underdog. Just not one who bites.

To quote Michael Stipe, consider this:

Newark charges New Yorkers more for public transit rides to its airport than at any major city on earth. And until they change that I want my fireworks show back.

For the 12-mile ride to Newark Airport from Midtown's Penn Station, the NJ Transit's AirTrain link charges $15 per person for the 24-minute trip. It's a commuter train, with little room for your bags. And it's priced to punish New Yorker airport-goers. If you get off at the station before the airport (Newark's Penn Station), it's only $4 one way; if you exit one station after the airport (North Elizabeth) it's $5.50.

NJ-NJ fares to the airport are far far cheaper. The 60-minute ride from Trenton (at the end of the line, on the Pennsylvania border) to Newark's Airport is only $9.25, a 38% savings for 150% jump in travel time.

Compare this with other world airports:

• In Tokyo, passengers can make the 40-mile trip to Narita on a Keikyu train for $4.
• In London, just how on the tube for the 15-mile trip to Heathrow ($8 one way).
• Paris' commuter train -- the RER (my initials) -- charges $11.50 for the trip.
• San Francisco's airport is reached directly by its BART commuter train -- about $5.

Jersey's looking for payback after New York stole Liberty Island, home to the Statue of Liberty. I GET IT. But if the inflow of tax money New Yorkers give by flying out of Newark doesn't allow for more rational, let-love-rule pricing, then I hope the fireworks will bring NJ Transit to their senses.

Brothers! Sisters! Stop the madness!

* With the exception, I hear, of Nicole Kidman (and a few other richies) who has a flashy pad on West Side Highway downtown.