Boardwalk

ATLANTIC CITY — The stabbing deaths of two Canadian tourists outside a casino hotel left tourism officials stunned and dismayed Monday, casting a shadow over the formal opening on Memorial Day weekend of the newest gambling palace and tripping up a $30 million-a-year campaign to rebrand and revive the sagging resort town. The two victims, women ages 80 and 47, were stabbed and killed during a robbery Monday morning outside Bally's Atlantic City casino hotel, just steps from where a police officer was sitting in a patrol car. Police declined to provide the names of the victims, or precisely where they were from, pending notification of family.

For most families, a visit to Ocean City, Md., traditionally has included a stroll along the town's 2 1/2-mile-long wooden boardwalk. In the summer of 1986, the scenario will be much the same. It's the boardwalk that will have changed. It will sport a new, sturdier herringbone design from 5th Street to 27th Street. Ever since Hurricane Gloria destroyed more than half of the resort's boardwalk in late September 1985, Mayor Roland Powell and the City Council have been overseeing a $2-million reconstruction project slated for completion May 1. Even so, the boardwalk has been far from out of commission all winter long.

Six months after Hurricane Gloria badly damaged a large section of the Boardwalk, the city government still has not repaired the world-famous walkway, and some casinos and merchants are complaining that their business is suffering. Hurricane Gloria, which struck on Sept. 27, tore up and buckled several parts of the Boardwalk, including a five-block section in the heart of town near Convention Hall. That stretch of the walkway, which undulates badly and is partially closed, has blocked the passage of Boardwalk trams that normally carry passengers to two casino-hotels and some Boardwalk shops.

With every wheeze and creak of Southern yellow pine nailed flat along this resort's fabled herringbone Boardwalk, there is a tale of the city and a tale of woe. Here in the sea wind, fighter Jack Dempsey thudded along the sun-bleached boards in training for a boxing match, automobile magnate Henry Ford rumbled by in a wicker rolling chair, and baseball great Joe DiMaggio strolled toward the lacy whitecaps of the Atlantic. The splintering planks creak with history, but they also groan with financial difficulties for Atlantic City, which is now mulling the once unthinkable for its wide, four-mile wooden walk.

A fire that raged out of control for more than two hours last night destroyed a block of shops and eateries on Wildwood's boardwalk, fire officials said. At least 400 firefighters from nine volunteer fire companies battled the blaze, which broke out at 7:54 p.m. in the row of one-story wooden buildings lining the boardwalk between Spencer and Young Avenues, fire officials said. The fire was declared under control shortly after 10 p.m., but officials said firefighters would remain on the scene through the night.

ATLANTIC CITY - Rolling chairs came into vogue in this seaside resort in the coquettish 1880s, when no Boardwalk promenade was complete without a parasol and a spin in one of the stylish contraptions - especially between Easter and Labor Day. The dainty wicker conveyances, pushed by human "operators," are so associated with Atlantic City that they are featured in the 19th-century Shore re-creation at Walt Disney World's Boardwalk Resort....

It's only the best for baby when Ocean City has its annual tiny tots parade on the boardwalk. There are marching bands and string bands and prizes for the cutest girls and boys. This year, there were little ones in antique prams and all sorts of creative get-ups, some helped along by their parents. Even some commercial floats joined in. About 266 children, all younger than 10, took part when the 81st annual show began at Sixth Street on Thursday. Almost two hours later, when the 38 judges - all female - had completed their task, they had more than 30 awards to give in different categories.

Atlantic City may never reestablish itself as "America's Favorite Playground," even though we still hear the slogan in certain optimistic, gung-ho circles at the Shore. But don't tell that to the folks sponsoring Beach Fest '95 this weekend. Billed as one of the largest free family festivals on the Eastern Seaboard, the three-day event is being sponsored by the Atlantic City Offshore Racing Association (ACORA), which has dedicated itself to promoting the city. Although most of the entertainment these days is in the casino-hotel showrooms, the showroom in this case will be the Atlantic City beach and Boardwalk, from one end to the other.

It's deja vu all over again on the Jersey Shore, where Wildwood officials are trying to finish a $3.5 million boardwalk renovation as the calendar marches briskly toward spring. In an uncanny coincidence, the resort finds itself in a predicament involving a boardwalk, a deadline, and a controversial rain-forest hardwood, just as Ocean City - its Cape May County neighbor 25 miles north - did this time last year. On one side of a gaping hole in his town's beloved promenade is Wildwood's sweating mayor, pondering what will become of 2 1/2 blocks of the boardwalk's most heavily trafficked section.

What's in the mysterious crate on the Port Charles waterfront, marked "Atlantic City Tumble Dry"? And what will happen to renegade rookie policeman Frisco Jones and his new wife, Felicia, unjustly accused of filching $45,000 and a fur coat? Will they be done in by the sinister septuagenarian hit woman, Edna Hit? "As we say on the show, tune in next time," said Jerry Balme, coordinating producer of "General Hospital" (weekdays at 3 p.m. on Channel 6), the outrageous Los Angeles-based television soap opera, which taped a series of scenes on the Boardwalk here yesterday.

ATLANTIC CITY - Rolling chairs came into vogue in this seaside resort in the coquettish 1880s, when no Boardwalk promenade was complete without a parasol and a spin in one of the stylish contraptions - especially between Easter and Labor Day. The dainty wicker conveyances, pushed by human "operators," are so associated with Atlantic City that they are featured in the 19th-century Shore re-creation at Walt Disney World's Boardwalk Resort....

A drunken joyride along the Atlantic City boardwalk on Monday afternoon left John Thompson, 28, of Staten Island, N.Y., in police custody and a 33-year-old man hospitalized, police said. About 12:40 p.m., Atlantic City Police spotted Thompson driving on the boardwalk next to the Trump Plaza casino near Florida Avenue and signaled for him to stop the car. Thompson sped nearly a mile south on the boards until he got off at Providence Avenue, then led police on a chase that ended at the toll plaza for the Atlantic City Expressway.

New DVD releases this week cover everything from booze to baseball. Grade A-minus: The series has the same kind of complicated and damaged characters as The Sopranos , but this time they're presented against a masterfully detailed background of one of the most volatile times in American history. Set in Atlantic City in the 1920s at the start of Prohibition, the series follows the lives of a handful of people caught up in the corruption and killings of the era. At the center is Nucky Thompson (Steve Buscemi)

Dorrell Shelton was 6 for 6 from the field and Tom Catanoso made 3 of 4 shots from three-point range as Middle Township handed Woodbury a 60-42 loss on Saturday in the championship game of the Chickie Ludman Bracket in the Boardwalk Classic boys' basketball tournament at the Wildwoods Convention Center. The Panthers shot 55 percent from the field, as Shelton scored 14 points, Catanoso had 13, Jeff Barber posted 15 points and six rebounds, and Tommy Feraco chipped in with 10 points. Girls.

OCEAN CITY, N.J. - They've been taking three simple ingredients - tomato sauce, cheese, and dough - and crafting them into edible memories for so long here that the name Mack & Manco is as iconic on this beach resort's boardwalk as its Ferris wheel and salt water taffy. So inherent in local culture is this throwback pizza parlor - actually there are now three boardwalk locations and one across the bridge on the mainland in Somers Point - that followers of the crispy tomato pies will tell you they seek a "Mack & Manco's" rather than a simple slice of pizza when headed for the boardwalk.

With Halloween right around the corner, you don't have to look far for chills and thrills. Here are attractions in the region that celebrate the haunted holiday.   Morey's Piers: Terror on the Boardwalk. The Wildwood amusement park will transform itself into an all-out panorama of panic, using the peaceful seaside location to play on people's unease. "There is a tension where it's like opposites attracting. We tried to enhance the effect of the beach and the sea," says Jack Morey, executive vice president of Morey's.

DAY AFTER DAY, Leo the lion sat in a sidecar bolted to a speeding cart, going around and around the Motordrome Wall of Death's rickety planks on the Wildwood boardwalk, the salty ocean air blowing through his thick mane as children squealed with excitement. While Leo captured all that attention, a lesser lion named Tuffy lay caged on the boardwalk by day and beneath it at night. Tuffy never felt the wind whipping though his scroungy mane on the Motordrome's steep wooden walls.

ATLANTIC CITY - With its curved, 47-story, glass-and-steel facade, the Revel casino resort is designed to "embrace" the beach and Boardwalk in a way that no building on this famous oceanfront has done before. The $2.4 billion megacasino - the state's second-tallest structure, behind the Goldman Sachs Tower in Jersey City - envelopes the onlooker like a giant, sculpted wave. "That was what was the concept from the very beginning," said Robert Andersen, executive vice president of project development for Revel Entertainment Group.

ASBURY PARK, N.J. - Summer may be over, but this Jersey Shore resort is enjoying what promises to be its hottest fall season in decades with an impressive array of events. Off-season hotel and bed and breakfast rates, which are 20 to 30 percent lower, are now in effect. The landmark, 300-room oceanfront Berkeley Carteret Hotel, headquarters for a three-day, 30-band music festival engulfing the city Sept. 30 to Oct. 2, was sold out. "We've had an amazing summer, our best yet despite a $30 room rate increase during this recession year," said Berkeley manager Michael Fanning.

FOR A TOWN that needs every scrap of good news it can get these days, the hit HBO series "Boardwalk Empire" has been like manna from heaven. Although set in an Atlantic City that has, save for the Boardwalk and Atlantic Ocean, no similarities at all to the present-day gambling-and-entertainment resort, "Boardwalk Empire," which had its second-season premier Sunday, has given the beleaguered gaming capital a higher national profile, not to mention a...