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"Atlantic
City Panorama" by Paul McGehee, the view from Million Dollar
Pier of the famous New Jersey beach resort in the summer of 1950.
Known as "The World's Playground", Atlantic City is one of the premiere
beach resorts of the East Coast. In its heyday it boasted numerous
hotels, some of great size...skyscrapers by the sea. One hotel was even
shaped like an elephant! Visible in this 1950 view are the Shelburne,
Dennis, Marlborough-Blenheim, Claridge, Madison, Traymore and
Chalfonte-Haddon Hall hotels. The massive Boardwalk, always teeming
with people, was where one could ride in "rolling chairs" past
establishments selling Planter's Peanuts, Fralinger's Salt Water Taffy,
hot dogs, cotton candy, hot corn on the cob and more. The amusement
piers boasted arcade and carnival attractions as well as top-flight
entertainers performing on stage...stars of stage, screen, and
vaudeville. And, who could ever forget the Steel Pier's famous "diving
horse" show? A young lady on horseback would climb a tower and plummet
40' straight down into a pool (four times a day, seven days a week) as
an amazed crowd of ticketholders gasped! Thousands not only came for
the attractions, but for sunbathing along the white-sand beach as the
waves of the Atlantic Ocean lapped at the shore. Atlantic City was
where the Miss America pageant started in 1921. The town still hosts
this nationally-televised event to this very day, from the gigantic
Boardwalk Hall building (formerly known as Convention Hall). The resort
became even further ensconced in pop culture as the setting for the
popular 1935 board game "Monopoly", which shares its property names
(Park Place, Baltic Avenue, St. James Place, etc. and of course,
Boardwalk) with the names of streets in Atlantic City. Today, Atlantic
City features several hotels and casinos, amusements and numerous fine
restaurants. After all of these years, it's still "The World's
Playground"! "Atlantic City Panorama" is faithfully reproduced as an
archival-quality print from McGehee's original color pencil drawing,
each hand-signed by the artist. A limited number of pencil remarqued prints of this
edition are
also available.
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