History
The Claridge is different from most Atlantic City resorts, since it did not grow out of a modest boarding house. It was the idea of Philadelphia architect John McShain who designed the 24-story, 400-room hotel. Opened in 1930 during The Great Depression, the Claridge became the last of the great hotels built in Atlantic City near the Boardwalk; no new resorts rose in the city until the 1960s when a Howard Johnsons hotel was built along the boardwalk. Due to the hotel’s tall, slick, slender appearance it gained the nickname “The Skyscraper By The Sea.”
The Claridge was a successful hotel during the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. Marilyn Monroe was a special guest there in the 1950s when she was a judge of the annual Miss America Pageant. Despite Atlantic City’s downturn as a premiere vacation resort in the 1960s, the hotel continued to operate and survived into the casino era.
Read more about this topic: Claridge Atlantic City
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“Only the history of free peoples is worth our attention; the history of men under a despotism is merely a collection of anecdotes.”
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“The history is always the same the product is always different and the history interests more than the product. More, that is, more. Yes. But if the product was not different the history which is the same would not be more interesting.”
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