Making Atlantic City A New Music Destination – Starting With One Weekend In June

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Atlantic City has a musical heritage that is less well-remembered than it should be. Once, AC played host to jazz greats including Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong. It was where Eunice Waymon became Nina Simone and it was the long-time host city to crooners such as Frank Sinatra. Now, the big-buck beach concerts make headlines as often as not for storm evacuations and parking-lot gouging as they do for drawing big name performers. But behind the scenes, there are efforts to revive Kentucky Avenue as a destination for jazz clubs, to keep the Chicken Bone Beach Jazz concerts going and to support new music.

More about: Exploring South Jersey, Atlantic City, constantine maroulis, dan monea, eunice waymon, jason spiewak, musical heritage, nina simone

Boardwalkers Be Advised

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Our World Famous Atlantic City Boardwalk has grown longer by at least a few hundred feet in the last couple weeks (who’s counting?) but anyone contemplating a wander on foot to the end should be advised the Boardwalk currently dead-ends rather dramatically at around Grammercy Place, with no ramps, steps or exits back to Maine Avenue as of now. To get back to street level, you have to turn around and walk back to Pacific Avenue (more than 1,000 feet by my unofficial reckoning) to find a ramp to get down to street level. The issue was raised Tuesday morning at the Boardwalk Committee Meeting where residents pointed out they’d seen people climbing over the railing to get to Maine Avenue. If you’re on a bike or otherwise mobile, that might not be a big deal but if you’re not so mobile, a two-thousand-plus foot detour is a bigger deal. When I was there I saw a 72 year old man (his estimate) who had scaled the wall with his dog.

More about: Exploring South Jersey

Where To Find Free Trees In South Jersey

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Come and get your five free trees! There’s no catch. The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection’s Forest Service has teamed up with Arbor Day Foundation to offer five trees to each New Jersey resident this spring. Each year they give out more than 100,000 seedlings. Each New Jersey resident can receive five one- to two-foot tall bare root tree seedlings in a bundle, according to the Forest Service’s Facebook page.

More about: Exploring South Jersey

The Boardwalk Is For Slow Cruising

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“The Boardwalk is for slow cruising only,” reads a new sign on the Atlantic City stretch of the Boardwalk, not far from Jackson Ave. The “Atlantic City Boardwalk Bike Riding Etiquette” sign is filled with other good advice too, such as to yield to pedestrians, walk bicycles through crowds and be prepared to stop. We at Route 40 are avid Boardwalk cyclists and we’re fans of the intention behind the sign. Even the wording is intelligible and straight-forward (leaving aside slow cruising double entendres). But there’s the rub.

More about: Atlantic City, Exploring South Jersey, Atlantic City, Bike riding etiqutte, Boardwalk Bike Hours, Boardwalk Signage