Mel Taylor of WPG Talk Radio 1450 interviews David Schwartz, author of Boardwalk Playground…11.20.15
The Making, Unmaking, & Remaking of Atlantic City: How the people of a New Jersey resort built a seaside paradise.
The hundred stories of Boardwalk Playground show Atlantic City from its awakening as a tourist destination in the 1860s to its lowest point a century later, its gambling-fueled rebirth to its current crossroads. It provides a personal, thoughtful view into a city that continues to fascinate the world.
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Biography from the author>
If you’re here, I’m guessing that you are at least a little curious about gambling and history. To be honest, that’s why I’m here, too. Everything I’ve written has started with me asking a question and not finding an easy answer. I write to share the interesting things I learn by trying to find the answers.
I first got interested in gambling as a kid growing up in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in the 1970s. Some of my earliest memories are of the classic hotels of the city being imploded to make way for modern casinos with hotel towers that had none of the charm of the original.
Despite this early evidence of that, perhaps, history might not have the strongest hold over people, I decided to major in it as an undergrad, along with anthropology. When it came time to go to grad school, I chose history over anthropology, though I can’t recall as I’m writing this exactly why I made that decision.
In grad school I was preparing myself for a career as a college history professor when a small exercise called the dissertation stepped in my way. I would have to choose something to write a book-length historical study on, and it had to be something that would contribute in some way to the literature.
That’s when I remembered the questions I’d had about casinos as a kid: Why did they need to blow up those beautiful old buildings to build new ones that didn’t look nearly as nice? If they just wanted to gamble, why didn’t they just let people gamble wherever they wanted?
With a few questions like that, I was on my way to writing a dissertation that got me researching casinos.
From there, I haven’t looked back, except for the year that I spent after I got my degree working in casino surveillance in Atlantic City’s Trump Taj Mahal casino. I’d worked at the Taj earlier in security,and spending some time in surveillance gave me an appreciation for just how complex casinos are, and it kindled an interest in a whole other set of questions.
Since arriving at UNLV back in 2001, I’ve been running the Center for Gaming Research, which has let me look at some very interesting areas of gambling and Las Vegas history.
My website has a ton of info about my writing, professional, and creative work. So feel free to check it out at www.dgschwartz.com.
As far as the writing goes, I’ve written four books from cover to cover, put out a second edition of one with substantial revisions and expansions, and edited two more.
You can read smaller bits of my writing (between a few paragraphs and 3,000 words) at Vegas Seven magazine, where I’m the gaming and hospitality editor. I write a biweekly column there, longer feature pieces, and shorter items as well.