Route 40 (https://rtforty.com/tag/atlantic-city/page/7/)
Atlantic City’s tourism district is home to New Jersey’s biggest needle exchange. The Oasis Drop In Center on Tennessee Avenue gives out thousands more needles than are returned each week.
From the steps of Patricia Harper’s Bungalow Park duplex you can look across the street through the gap in the houses and count three former casinos—the Revel, the Showboat, the Trump Taj Mahal—that were worth, not so long ago, well over $3 billion in total.
Two nonprofits, the Catholic church, a development company and a casino are all coming together to refurbish a former school in Atlantic City. It might sound like an odd alliance but transforming the former St Michael’s school into a useable space almost three decades after it closed is turning out to be a little tougher than expected.
The emails and phone messages from Atlantic City native Reese Palley were punctuated with a sense of urgency for the city’s survival. His pitch was simple: reinvent the image of a summer resort, promoting second homes within financial reach of young families. Before Reese passed away in 2015, he advised the highest and best use for the city is recreation. We should forgo other industries; get rid of our high-tech ideas, “What are you going to do, screw it up a second time? Atlantic City has used up its God-given chances!”
Local institution Gilchrist Restaurant is opening a fourth location on Pacific Avenue in Atlantic City at the site of the former Teplitzky’s Diner, according to a Facebook announcement on Thursday.
Gardner’s Basin
Atlantic City Council voted 5-4 after an hour’s long discussion to proceed with a lease-and-management plan for Gardner’s Basin, the city’s 11.6-acre public park that is home to the Atlantic City Aquarium and Gilchrist restaurant. The plan would hand over running of the site to local developer Scarborough Properties and allow them to add a new restaurant, a water taxi, mini golf and other facilities, Erin Serpico reports for The Press of Atlantic City. Costco
An existing Shop-Rite lawsuit against a Cherry Hill ordinance the supermarket chain says was tailored to open doors to Costco could void the recently-approved redevelopment plan that green lighted the warehouse store’s construction, Kevin Riordan reports for The Inquirer. Also – read Matt Skoufalos of NJPen on residents’ concerns about the project, which is set to be built (future legal challenges aside) on a site earmarked for a mixed residential-and-commercial and transit-focused development that would have given Cherry Hill the downtown it never had. Dr. Kauffman
A grand jury has indicted Dr. James Kauffman on weapons and obstruction charges after he pulled a gun when investigators came to his office with a search warrant, Lynda Cohen reports for BreakingAC.com.
A federal class-action lawsuit alleges that several Camden-county residents developed cancer and other illnesses due to contamination from the Sherwin-William paint plant at Gibbsboro. The plant used toxic chemicals including lead, benzene and arsenic at several sites between 1930 and 1978, according to the suit.
There was a raid, an alligator and a suspicious fire at Atlantic City’s Bayview motel. Now the motel’s owner is missing. Without any action, the buildings that make up the motel will be demolished on Monday, Lynda Cohen reports for BreakingAC.
A Ventnor-based team of producers is hoping to shoot a one-hour dramatic series in Atlantic City this fall. Little Rock Films + Studios is fundraising to pay for a pilot episode that would be filmed in the city in November and offered to networks after post-production next year.
George Norcross visited The Press of Atlantic City a couple of weeks ago for a 90-minute discussion about AC (and Camden, apparently) with the paper’s editorial board and reporters. The result was this interview published Friday, which is somewhat light on questioning of some of Norcross’ more bizarre assertions (“If we’d had casinos in Camden, you’d be looking at Las Vegas East”) but includes some interesting details, such as Norcross’s belief the state takeover of Atlantic City will continue even if Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Murphy (who has said he would end the takeover) wins office.