Atlantic City’s Inlet section was once a tourist’s dream
The Inlet's future: Revel, slated to open in May 2012.
ATLANTIC CITY — When casino gaming first came to Atlantic City in 1978, with promises of revitalizing the city, one of the first areas that community leaders had wanted to see reborn was the city’s Inlet section.
And that would be both sides of the Inlet, north and south.
At the time, the South Inlet sat mostly barren and vacant, its homes demolished and its lots cleared during an ill-fated urban renewal scheme in the mid-1960s, championed by Pauline Hill, then director of the city housing authority. It was dubbed Pauline’s Prairie, and while it did remove blight, it also ended the South Inlet as a thriving neighborhood. Much of it sits vacant to this day.
The North Inlet, however, still had all the trappings of decay and urban blight that Hill had hoped to erase into the ’60s. Constructed to out-of-date building codes, subject to a constant series of suspicious fires in the ’70s that left many buildings gutted, and just overall general decay, the remnants of a once proud neighborhood sat like empty brick ghosts.
Today, mostly through housing projects and demolition funded and supported by the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority (CRDA) in the North Inlet, and casino projects such as the Showboat, Taj Mahal and the ongoing Revel project in the South Inlet, both areas have staged comebacks, even if there is further to go.
But like so much of the “old” Atlantic City before the resort’s decline in the ’60s, the Inlet can only hope to regain the stability it once had.
From the early days of the city through the 1950s, the Inlet was a solid working-class neighborhood buttressed by summer rentals and home to many of the city’s workers.
“It was really a wonderful neighborhood,” says Tom Hulme, a native city resident who still lives in the city and has studied the Inlet’s glory days. “It was mostly residential, but there were a lot of taverns and businesses mixed into the housing. But mostly, there was the boating.”
Ah, yes there was the boating.
There was a time when the Inlet was the other side of the Boardwalk, touted as just as popular as the city’s central tourist district.
And that tradition started in the city’s earliest days. In 1876 the Camden and Atlantic Railroad built a pier and two-story pavilion at Maine and Caspian Avenues.
Buoyed by a host of “Inlet Captains” who offered sightseeing tours, fishing trips and ocean cruises, the area was a tourist haven.
“You have to remember that taking a boat ride was a big deal back then,” says Hulme. “Only the very rich had boats. Now, everybody and his brother has a boat, but in those days people never got much of a chance to get out on the ocean. It was almost a once in a lifetime experience.”
The captains would form the Atlantic City Yachtsman Association in the 1870s and lease dock space from the railroad until 1935, but the tradition would endure through the ’70s.
From 1964 to 1979, Hulme worked on those boats, or more specifically for one of the most famous Inlet Captains, Clarence Starn.
Starn, whose Inlet career started in the 1920s, would eventually be as famous for his iconic Inlet restaurant, Captain Starn’s, as for the sailboat fleet he ran touring the waters around Absecon Island. The site was called Captain Starn’s Restaurant and Boating Center.
Starn had actually moved his sailboat operation to the Steel Pier at the center of the Boardwalk, when an opportunity presented itself.
Purchasing the Inlet site from the railroad, he would open Starn’s in 1940, with the restaurant’s dining room on the first floor of the original pavilion.
From the start, Starn’s was one of the city’s last must-see attractions.
“It was like a mini-circus,” says Hulme. “They initially even had porpoises in a tank there, but they found that they didn’t winter well here. So they let them go and brought in sea lions. They stood up better in the winter and became a tradition.”
The Catanoso brothers were already seasoned amusement-park veterans when they reopened Atlantic City’s Steel Pier with 14 rides in 1993, a scant 22 days after signing a five-year lease that extended to the year the famous Pier turned 100.
For our 2nd annual Then and Now issue, celebrating the Atlantic City region, we asked several members of the community about their experiences and memories.
Revel Casino stays ahead of the curve when it comes to keeping those who want to remain “in the know” informed of its progress in Atlantic City.
One had only to take a “stroll” on the Atlantic City Boardwalk to have a wonderful and eventful time without spending anything! You could begin anywhere, but let’s start in the Inlet section at Capt. Starn’s.
Captain Starn’s and Hackney’s Seafood Restaurant, both located off the Boardwalk in the Inlet section of town, were two of the most famous restaurants on the entire East Coast.
Anyone who remembers Atlantic City over the past 50 years can envision the simple fare of such classic fish houses as Captain Starn's, Hackney's and Abe's. When they disappeared, they left a void in ...
It was a ritual of summer. My brothers and I rode our bicycles on the Atlantic City Boardwalk every Saturday morning. We would ride the length of the boards and visit the seals at Starn's. On the way...
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1. Anonymous said... on Nov 3, 2011 at 12:51AM
“THIS BRINGs BACK THE OLD MEMORIES!! THANK YOU FOR REMeMBERING CAPT STARNs. AC WAS ONCE A VERY DIFFERENT PLACe!”
2. Anonymous said... on Nov 3, 2011 at 02:59PM
“What about the Garwood Mills shopping experience! b”
3. david glassman said... on Feb 4, 2012 at 10:24AM
“I had no idea that Captain Starn's Boating Center no longer exists. So sad. One of my favorite memories is my father taking me on a deep sea four hour bass fishing charter trip from Captain Starn's Inlet in the late '70s. I guess they closed not long after our trip.”
4. R said... on Jun 19, 2012 at 04:27PM
“Family took summer trips there all the time sad its not around I wish I had photo's of the place the way it was in the 60's”
5. gloria robinson said... on Dec 28, 2012 at 10:27PM
“I have alot memories of the inlet. My dad use to work on the fishin boat He's name was wesley Robinson they called him SONNY BOY. I miss those day and i miss my dad rest in peace dad love and miss you thanks for the memories.”
6. Anonymous said... on Dec 28, 2012 at 10:33PM
“I have alot memories of the inlet. My dad use to work on the fishin boat He's name was wesley Robinson they called him SONNY BOY. I miss those day and i miss my dad rest in peace dad love and miss you thanks for the memories.”
7. Anonymous said... on Feb 25, 2013 at 10:16PM
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