Atlantic City is what it has always been: Naughty

"There were a very large number of soldiers in town, and the Army flat-out said, 'We're not gonna have our guys losing their money in your gambling joints,' " said Johnson.

Even Nucky Johnson, who would wind up convicted of racketeering in the 1940s, couldn't fight the Army. As a result, the storefront action was replaced by a slightly more discreet strategy: gambling still flourished, but behind closed doors.

"By the 1950s and '60s, nightclubs [such famed hotspots as the Club Harlem on Kentucky Avenue and Paul "Skinny" D'Amato's storied 500 Club on Missouri Avenue] had gambling rooms, but no longer had horse rooms or card rooms," Johnson said.

Stepping in for the fallen Nucky was Atlantic City's third and final "emperor," Frank S. Farley (1901-1977), an Atlantic County state senator for whom the Atlantic City Expressway service plaza and the state marina at Trump Marina casino are named.

While Farley wasn't immune to engaging in corruption and bossism, he at least had a more noble intent than his two predecessors, for whom lining their own pockets was always Job One, author Johnson explained. "Farley appreciated the income from the rackets, but he focused on bringing home the bacon from Trenton."

Atlantic City needed that pork barrel.

Unlike his two predecessors, Farley ruled a city that had seen its best days.

The ascension of Las Vegas and, in the 1950s, Havana, as centers of legal gaming, and the development of cheap air travel led to a severe decline in Atlantic City's fortunes. By the early '70s, even the town's vice industry was on the ropes.

In November 1976, New Jersey voters approved legal casinos in Atlantic City. Eighteen months later, Resorts opened its doors. And the breast-beating and lamentation over a lost world of wholesomeness and innocence - which never really existed - began. *

Chuck Darrow has covered Atlantic City and casinos for more than 20 years. Read his blog http://go.philly.com/casinotes.

E-mail him at darrowc@phillynews.com.

And listen to his Atlantic City report Saturdays at 1:25 a.m. with Steve Trevelise on WIP (610-AM).