Endicott Emergency. Atlantic City issued a “repair, occupy and/or demolish” notice to 209 S Tennessee Ave, an unoccupied former rooming house on the beach block. A hearing on the property was scheduled for July 20, but the outcome was unknown and officials at City Hall did not respond to questions about the property.
Wind Power. The city granted final site plan approval to Orsted Wind Power North America to build its Atlantic City operations and maintenance facility at 600-700 N Delaware Ave, in the Inlet.
There’s a housing crisis. A city-owned property at 618 Caspian Ave was transferred to a nonprofit that will renovate it for single-family housing, according to an ordinance that passed on its second reading in June. The ordinance said, “the City of Atlantic City is aware that there is a housing crisis in the City; to wit: there is a significant lack of affordable housing in the City which is detrimental to the health, welfare, and well-being of the citizens of the City.” Meanwhile there will likely be no redevelopment at Stanley Holmes Village for at least the next two years, according to the April meeting of the Atlantic City Executive Council. Stanley Holmes, built in the 1930s, is one of the oldest public housing communities in the city and the region. A federal grant in 2020 was used to consider how to redevelop the property and surrounding neighborhood. New applications will be made for grants to do the work, but they will likely not be approved before the end of 2023, according to the meeting notes.
Busy In The City. Atlantic City last week published six new requests for proposals for everything from grant management for the Ducktown neighborhood preservation program to a tow truck and an economic development action strategy.
What’s Coming Up?
The Atlantic City Arts Foundation is holding a Midsummer Celebration at the Absecon Lighthouse on Saturday, with community projects, exhibitions and fun activities all day. (July 30)
Catch this week’s edition of Jazz On The Boardwalk, featuring Stefon Harris as well as some of the students of the Chicken Bone Beach Historical Foundation’s youth institute for jazz studies. (Aug. 4)
Check out the Around The Island swim festival and see if you can spot some swimmers along the bay, inlet or ocean! (Aug. 9)
Further Reading
“It’s 50 years since Bob Rafelson’s quiet indictment of the hollowness of American dreams was released,” writes Peter Tonguette at the British Film Institute, on the anniversary of The King Of Marvin Gardens, which was set in and around Atlantic City.
Also, a couple of great long reads about school segregation in New Jersey: this one from Gothamist on a complaint by The New Jersey Coalition Against Racial Exclusion, or NJ-CARE, hand-delivered a letter to Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Kristen Clarke at the NAACP convention in Atlantic City recently and also this one by Politico’s Carly Sitrin on decades of integration efforts in the South Orange/Maplewood district.
