Johnson - Boardwalk empire: the birth, high times, and corruption of Atlantic City

Shortly after sunrise on a cool August morning in 1987, my friend Chris and I walked along the beach in Atlantic City, its Boardwalk and hotel-casinos looming directly to our right. With our ties undone, bellies full, and pockets empty after a night of gambling, drinking, and general debauchery, we were completely exhausted and wiped out financially; we couldnt have been happier. As we trudged along, the waves crashing at our feet, I reached into my pocket and pulled out the last few coins I had. Twenty-three cents. I hurled them all into the Atlantic Ocean and turned to Chris. Now were really wiped out. After a good laugh, we headed up to the Boardwalk and started our long trek home, two hard-luck characters with another fun story to tell about our time in Atlantic City. What I didnt know then was that versions of this scenario had been playing out there for over 100 years.

Ever since the railroad made it accessible to the average working person, Absecon Islandor Atlantic City, as it came to be knownwas The Worlds Playground, a kingdom of dreams built on sand, a place where, for a reasonable sum of money, any man, woman, or child could be treated like visiting royalty. With luxury hotels, theaters, and restaurants lining its famous Boardwalk, there was nothing the city didnt offerlegal or illegal. Food, drink, and entertainment of all kinds, from highbrow to low. If you couldnt find it on the Boardwalk (or on one of its many side streets), it didnt exist.

When I was first approached by HBO to use Nelson Johnsons book as the basis for a TV series, my biggest challenge was choosing a time period in which to set it. From the Gilded Age of the Robber Barons, to the Roaring Twenties and the Prohibition Era, to the Glamorous 1950s of Skinny DAmato, to the citys decline and subsequent resurgence with the advent of legalized gambling in the 1970s, Atlantic City and its people have been nothing if not compelling.

Ultimately I settled on the 1920s of Atlantic Citys legendary Treasurer Nucky Johnson (fictionalized as Nucky Thompson in the HBO series), which was the era that most struck my creative fancy. Atlantic City at that time was a place of excess, glamour, and, most of all, opportunity. Loud, brash, colorful, full of hope and promiseit was a microcosm of America. A place of spectacle, shady politics, fast women, and backroom deals, but also a real community with real people, not only on its Boardwalk, but in its churches, schools, and neighborhoods. It was a place of real Americans, a melting pot of ideas and cultures.

On my last trip there, I walked the same streets as Nucky, stood in his hotel lobby, ate in one of his favorite restaurants. I strode the Boardwalk where he reigned as king, looking out at the vast ocean that he considered his own. I was taken back in time and imagined the place as it had been, and though I enjoyed it all immensely, I neednt have traveled so far to recreate the experience. Nelson Johnson had already taken me there in his wonderful book.

Terence Winter

Emmy Award-winning writer of The Sopranos
and Executive Producer of Boardwalk Empire