Boardwalk Empire: The Roaring Twenties

As organized crime boss Nucky Johnson strolled arm-in-arm with Al Capone on the Atlantic City boardwalk in 1929, he could not have guessed that some 80 years later a Superior Court judge would write a book about him. The irony!

“He’s such a colorful character,” Nelson Johnson said of Nucky Johnson, (no relation). “He’s got different women whenever he wants them. He’s driven around in a Rolls-Royce. He takes a whole trainload of people to the World Series. He takes a trainload of people up to a Broadway play for the weekend. I mean, who the hell lives this way? He lived like a potentate, but I got to talk to these people who did these things with him.”

Nelson Johnson was a Hammonton, NJ attorney at the time he wrote “Boardwalk Empire: The Birth, High Times and Corruption of Atlantic City,” and now is a Superior Court judge in Atlantic City. Johnson spent many lost weekends and 20 years of research and writing before the nearly 300-page history of Atlantic City was published in 2002. He entered a race against time to contact the old timers who knew first hand how things were in Atlantic City when Nucky was in charge.

The book covers a period from the mid-19th century into the early 1980’s. It is chapters five and six about Nucky Johnson that inspired the HBO series “Boardwalk Empire” and the fictional character, Nucky Thomson. Johnson’s book is a well-documented historical account of how vice businesses empowered three Atlantic City Republican leaders, Nucky Johnson, Louis “The Commodore” Kuehnle and Frank “Hap” Farley.

“There had been a very strong (political) organization that had provided leadership for more than three generations, and everybody marched in lock step because the organization knew what was best for the community,” Johnson said, “The majority of the people believed that. With the short (summer) season in which to make a buck, you had to make sure that everybody was working on the same page.”

Nucky controlled not only the Republican political machine and its stranglehold on local government, but also made sure illegal liquor (during prohibition), prostitution and gambling flourished under the protection of paid-off officials.

The HBO series is more focused on entertainment than the historical facts that took Johnson so long to research and document. That focus is in evidence in Atlantic City as well. In an effort to capitalize on the roaring success of “Boardwalk Empire,” Resorts Hotel and Casino adopted a Roaring Twenties theme.

Of this decision, Resort’s new owner, Dennis Gomes, said, “It seemed like a natural. The property was built in the 1920’s and the decor already was from the twenties. The twenties were more than just a decade in a history book. It was a decade that defined and shaped our nation,” Gomes said. “Beyond that, it was a fun, adventurous and exciting period where people simply let loose to give way to a lifestyle where entertainment was king. We want to bring people back to that period where there was fun and excitement and people were coming out of their shells and everything.”

Can Gomes pull that off when high unemployment reduces his potential audience and gasoline prices add more to the cost of a casino trip?

“I’m worried about gas prices,” Gomes said. “That will slow travel down, and people won’t travel as far. I’m worried about the economy. With more people out of work, that means less money being spent on recreation. I’m also worried about competition for Atlantic City.”

Under Gomes’ leadership, Tropicana Hotel Casinos in Nevada and Atlantic City had its stock go from $5 to $50 per share, but that was before the economy tanked.

Resorts’ new theme includes flappers serving drinks from the speakeasy era in derriere revealing costumes, and a new gay nightclub called Prohibition.

“It’s excitement, it’s sexiness, it’s fun, it’s just everything Las Vegas has we’re going to have and it’s just a part of entertainment,” Gomes said. He said new costumes for employees cost about $1 million. So how much does a casino cost these days? If you get a bargain like Gomes did, it’s $35 million, the lowest price ever paid for a casino in New Jersey.

So, will people looking for a respite from these tight times go to Resorts to do the Charleston and sip whiskey-soaked cocktails in a round-the-clock party atmosphere? Or will they stay home instead and watch “Boardwalk Empire” on television?

Some will read Nelson Johnson’s history of Atlantic City, including the times when mobsters wielded considerable power. And they could relive the 1920s at Resorts. To some degree, that will determine whether Dennis Gomes’ wins the $35 million bet he has made that he can operate a profitable casino in the toughest times in most of our lifetimes.