Atlantic City Weekly

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Peter McDonald

One of The Whoot!’s earliest employees, singer-guitarist Peter McDonald, was recruited into journalism by publisher Lew Steiner. For some 25 years, he wrote and devoted his energies to the entertainment guide known as “The Whoot Route.” He also performed his beloved Irish music at venues like The Irish Pub and the Ri-Ra at Tropicana (his current gig is at North Wildwood’s Anglesea Pub).

You’re in a unique position to recall The Whoot!’s roots.

I think the name Whoot! was Lew Steiner’s idea. It was supposed to convey “what’s hot,” to sound like that. That would have been around 1974, though I didn’t start until about 1977. I’d met Lew at a fundraiser for a popular folksinger named Laurie Berlin. Those were the days when they’d collect funds to go down to Mexico for laetrile (a substance then used for cancer treatments). Anyway, Lew said something, not straightway, but after meeting a couple times. I was performing at the Irish Pub at the time, and he asked, do you like writing, and whether I’d do some stuff for the Whoot!. I ended up staying for a long, long time — some 25 years. I enjoyed it; it got me out of the house!

And then there was that other “Whoot Route.”

That was kind of an easy way to get started, because we’d basically just take ad copy, add everybody’s two cents, and put together a schedule. We’d write about events like somebody opening a pub — it was real grassroots, and it just kind of worked. Lew and his dad, Herb, both liked designing those types of projects.

Where did all this take place?

Initially Herb had a real estate company, I think at 3809 Atlantic Ave., where everybody came in to put the paper together. There were only about four or five of us, and we’d all take a hand in just about everything. We’d write, do composition, help with circulation. It was a lot of work, and I don’t know that we made a lot of money, but we all had one goal: We had to get the paper out. When we had everything together, we’d load it onto a van and take it to be printed in a place near Salem [N.J.].

Who was the driving force?

Lew was like a nuclear reactor, with an inexhaustible storage of energy. He was the one who really made it grow. Then again, the presence of Marcia Steiner, Lew’s mother, was no small factor. Things could get very hot in a newspaper office, especially at deadline, and she was very much a calming presence.

You make it sound easy.

Oh no, some days we just didn’t know how we were able to get the paper out — it defied logic. We’d be in Lew’s van, with negatives hanging inside from the roof — the photos for that issue — rushing to Salem, or we’d all be heading for different places to drop off 30, 40 newly-printed newspapers. But Lew and Herb — who were very similar personalities — put in whatever they had to, to make it go right. In time, it became a very big thing, to get your name in Whoot!. By the way, to the public it was The Whoot!, but we just called it Whoot!.

What impact did casinos have?

On March 26, 1978, Resorts International became the only non-Vegas casino in the country. Six-hour waiting lines on the Boardwalk just to lose your money! The industry grew, and we grew too. Because of the local connections, we were able to open doors that others couldn’t, and that really helped. Once the casinos went 24 hours, everything exploded — disco ruled, and somehow it blended perfectly with the casino crowd. And the “Whoot Route” became a kind of bible of where to go in town.