Where Is Atlantic City Located

The boundaries of Atlantic City in 1884. Norfolk and Western Historical Photograph Collection.

1899 map of Atlantic City. City of Norfolk Communications & Technology.

Best known for its boardwalk and its casinos, Atlantic City is a great destination for a day of 'play.' Enjoy a good dose of sea air and a spot of retail therapy while strolling the boardwalk, and then head into the casinos with grand ambitions to win big on the slot machines (and hopefully spend your winnings on a steak at an Atlantic City institution). Atlantic City is a census-designated place (CDP) in Fremont County, Wyoming, United States. The population was 37 at the 2010 census. The community is a small mining settlement in a gulch near South Pass in southwestern Wyoming. It was founded as a mining camp following the 1867 gold rush in the region. Welcome to the Atlantic City google satellite map! This place is situated in Atlantic County, New Jersey, United States, its geographical coordinates are 39° 21' 51' North, 74° 25' 24' West and its original name (with diacritics) is Atlantic City.

Atlantic City

Atlantic City was a Norfolk neighborhood bordered by Front Street, Raleigh Avenue, Colley Avenue and the Elizabeth River. In the 1950s, the area was cleared and the majority of buildings demolished to make way for medical facilities and medical offices as well as private businesses.

Development

By the time Atlantic City was annexed to Norfolk in 1890, lots were being sold and businesses were relocating rapidly to the area.The Norfolk Virginian in 1896 noted real estate transactions such as a sale from J.W. Backus to H.J. Lambert for one lot on the easterly side of Colley Avenue for $1,500. One business, the Norfolk Ship-yard and dry dock, purchased land in Atlantic City from a Mrs. Groner for $50,000. This sale, in 1900, included plans for a new shipyard.

As Atlantic City developed into a neighborhood, it went through many improvements and changes. In 1899, residents requested a post office because of the high demand of cotton and expanding enterprises. In that same year, a city ordinance was declared for residents of Atlantic City to connect their homes with the sewage system to avoid waste gathering in the streets. Anyone not following the law would be fined five dollars. The ordinance was put into effect on July 1, 1899.

In January of 1900, a meeting was held to discuss the improvements to the Atlantic City ward. The Norfolk railway and light company were to furnish the area with electric streetlights for the next three years and a company was hired to sweep the streets.

Atlantic City Bridge

In December of 1899, The Virginian-Pilot reported on the completion of the Atlantic City Bridge. The bridge, located at the foot of York Street, was 180 feet long and considered one of the longest bridges in the country. It had a five-horse power electric motor and weighed thousands of tons. This bridge allowed traffic to go straight to Atlantic City instead of going around Ghent. The cost of the bridge was $65,000 and was built specifically for the “heavy cotton and oyster traffic to and from the Atlantic City Ward.”

Community Life (1890s)

In the late 1890s the Norfolk Virginian, in their Atlantic City column, often noted small items of interest specific to the neighborhood. Items like “Miss Monroe Callis is quite sick at her home on Colley Avenue” and “Mrs. James Thornton was reported as improving yesterday.” Other examples of these entries are: parlor socials sponsored by the Silver Cross Circle of the King’s Daughters (1900), lawn parties on the Presbyterian church property for raising money for the Library fund (1899), an ice cream party at the Central Baptist Church (1899) and a party on the corner of B and Colley Avenue to raise money for children’s Sunday school (1895). There were listings for business meetings conducted by Tae “Y” organization and the Ladies Aid Society meeting was held at Mrs O’Connor’s home, located at 1 Colley Avenue (1895). These items touched on the mundane and the regulatory such as where responsibility lay in tree removal in Atlantic City. Overall, the news and items of interest point to a close-knit community during that time period. In 1899, the neighborhood even had a baseball team, the “Atlantic Citys” that would play other teams in the area.

In the late 1800s, meetings of various organizations, including the Junior Order of United American Mechanics, were held at the Odd Fellows Hall in Atlantic City.

Where Is Atlantic City Located In New Jersey

The Norfolk Jockey Club (formed in 1826) held horseracing events on Colley Avenue, or Fort Norfolk Road, as it was called during this time. Despite the invention of new sports, the locals were still entertained by the prospect of horse racing and gambling. The Jockey Club was popular until gambling was outlawed in 1914.

Another early landmark formerly located in Atlantic City was the Bonney Home for Girls at the corner of Boissevain Avenue and Colley Avenue. The home, for “indigent white girls” was founded in 1910.

Voting

In 1900, Atlantic City was divided into two voting precincts. Precinct One was known as the old election district and Precinct Two was known as the new election district. The voting places changed as well: Precinct One voting place was in the pump house on Colley Avenue and the Precinct Two voting place was in the auxiliary pump house on the corner of Ward Avenue and Duke Street.

Crime

Like most urban neighborhoods, crimes did occur in Atlantic City. This article from the Virginian Pilot on March 13, 1900 notes a pistol shot that went errant. The reporter wrote “there was no clue to the party who perpetrated the dastardly deed.”

Norfolk CityRedevelopment Plan #1

In 1946, the NRHA (Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority) created redevelopment and improvement plans for the city of Norfolk. This included plans for the central business district, civic center, recreation areas and highway changes. Much of this was in response to increasing pressure on the city to eliminate slums and construct new military housing for post-war families.

Norfolk was the first city in the nation to take advantage of the Housing Act of 1949, which offered federal money for slum clearance and redevelopment. In 1951, the HHFA provided $1 million for Norfolk’s Redevelopment Project #1.

This project involved slum clearance of 127 acres downtown and construction of 3,000 public housing units in the Tidewater Gardens area.

Redevelopment Plan #2 (The Atlantic City Redevelopment Project)

Demolition for the Atlantic City redevelopment project began in 1957. This project cleared 140 acres and affected 360 structures and 400 families. All of the homes in this area (except two) had been built before WW1. The difference between this project and project #1 was that public housing was not provided to the residents of Atlantic City.

The project also addressed the need to move traffic in and out of downtown and implemented the 1950 Major Highway Plan. Construction extended Hampton Boulevard to downtown and connected Brambleton Avenue and Hampton to the Midtown Tunnel.

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Land was made available for private apartments, EVMS, the Public Health Center and CHKD. This land clearing would create a clustering of medical facilities and adjacent medical offices. But, it also demolished the remains of the Atlantic City neighborhood and later reconfigured Colley Avenue for the medical facility purposes.

In “How Cities Work: Suburbs, Sprawl, and the Roads not Taken” author Alex Marshall suggested that where Atlantic City once was, is now “a tangle of highway, vacant lots and a huge medical complex.”

Others, such as author Forrest White, suggested that the city tore town Atlantic City to avoid school integration. Atlantic City was largely white with a few African-American families.

City

Photographs

Photographs from the Sargeant Memorial Collection at Norfolk Public Library show a neighborhood full of character and thriving waterfront industries.

1920s. Wallace Brothers Gasoline Engines. Sargeant Memorial Collection – Norfolk Public Library.

W.H. Hopkins and Co. at Groner’s Wharf. Southhampton Ave. Sargeant Memorial Collection – Norfolk Public Library.

Jones Brothers Coal and Wood, 1911. Sargeant Memorial Collection – Norfolk Public Library.

Photographs of Atlantic City in 1957. Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority.

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Cotton and Jute warehouses encompass an entire block of Front Street and Colley Avenue on the Elizabeth River. Sargeant Memorial Collection – Norfolk Public Library.

The cotton warehouses were still standing in 2007 when Rodney Hurst took these photographs. Sargeant Memorial Collection – Norfolk Public Library.

The demolition of Atlantic City in 1959. West Colley Avenue near Olney. Sargeant Memorial Collection – Norfolk Public Library.