Jim Whelan Boardwalk Hall, formerly known as the Historic Atlantic City Convention Hall, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in Atlantic City, New Jersey. It was Atlantic City's primary convention center until the opening of the Atlantic City Convention Center in 1997. Boardwalk Hall was declared a U.S. National Historic Landmark in 1987 as one of the few surviving buildings from the city's early heyday as a seaside resort.[3][4] The venue seats 10,500 people for ice hockey, and at maximum capacity can accommodate 14,770 for concerts. Boardwalk Hall is the home of the Miss America Pageant.
Boardwalk Hall contains the world's largest musical instrument, a pipe organ of over 33,000 pipes, eight chambers, its console the world's largest of seven manuals and over 1000 stop keys, and one of two 64-foot (20m) stops (the other found in the Sydney Town Hall). Also included in this organ are pipes operating on 100 inches of pressure, the Grand Ophicleide being the loudest and also most famous. The Guinness Book of World Records noted "a pure trumpet note of ear-splitting volume, six times louder than the loudest train whistle." However, these stops are actually well-refined and are not overpowering in Boardwalk Hall due to its huge interior.
In October 2017, the New Jersey Senate approved legislation to dedicate Atlantic City's Boardwalk Hall in honor of Senator Jim Whelan, the former mayor and state lawmaker who died earlier in the year.
History and Design
Edward L. Bader, mayor of Atlantic City from 1924 to 1927, led the initiative to acquire the land for Convention Hall, now Boardwalk Hall, and construction was underway at the time of his death.[5] The hall, designed by the architectural firmLockwood Greene, was built in 1926.
The main hall measures 456 by 310 feet (139 by 94 m). The barrel vault ceiling is 137 feet (42m) high. Ten pairs of three-hinged steel trusses support this unusually large clear span; there are no supporting columns. Each pair of trusses spans 350 feet (110m) and weighs 220 short tons (200t). The trusses are tied to the frame columns to allow the building to flex slightly with wind and ground pressure. The barrel ceiling consists of painted aluminum tiles. It is decorated to resemble Roman bath tiles, and extends over 196,000 square feet (18,200m2).[6] The building's forward section is slightly rotated to align with the boardwalk, while the hall itself is aligned to the street grid.
It takes sound roughly 0.4 seconds to travel the length of the hall; because of this, the pipe organ chambers could not be built more than halfway back from the stage or a noticeable delay would occur. This led to two of the organ's chambers being placed in the upper shell of the building, in the space between the outer roof and the ceiling.
Various uses
Boardwalk Hall in 1992
The Miss America Pageant, founded in 1921 in Atlantic City, used Boardwalk Hall from the hall's opening in 1940[citation needed] until 2006. The Pageant returned to the hall in 2013. It was last used for Miss America 2019.
The following weekend, The Beatles held one of their largest concerts on their first U.S. tour at the hall.
Judy Garland gave a concert at Convention Hall on August 4, 1961. Garland returned for a second engagement on Sept 3rd, 1961.
The hall was also the venue for the concert by The Rolling Stones on their Steel Wheels Tour in 1989. The concert, which was shown on pay-per-view television, is widely remembered by fans for a mishap where viewers were cut off from the performance during the song "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction", as well as the performance of "Miss You" in some countries. This concert was remastered, remixed and released on DVD, Blu-Ray, CD and Vinyl on 2 October 2020, as Steel Wheels Live Atlantic City, New Jersey '89.
On August 16, 2003 Justin Timberlake and Christina Aguilera were supposed to perform at the Boardwalk Hall, but due to a major stage collapse, the show (and later tour) was postponed.[8]
Phish played three nights at Boardwalk Hall for Halloween in both 2010 and 2013. The 2010 Halloween concert featured a performance of Little Feat's Waiting For Columbus album in its entirety. The 2013 show included the debut of Phish's unrecorded album Wingsuit, which would later become the album Fuego.
American pop star Madonna performed at the venue four times, with the first sold-out show at arena in front of 12,322 people during her Confessions Tour on July 16, 2006, she performed the second show in front of 13,293 people during her Sticky & Sweet Tour on November 22, 2008, and the third show in front of 12,207 people during her MDNA Tour on September 15, 2012, The fourth and last time in front of 9,498 people during her Rebel Heart Tour on October 3, 2015.
Lady Gaga was scheduled to perform here on March 2, 2013, for her Born This Way Ball, but the show was later cancelled due to a hip injury which required surgery. She has previously performed at the arena on July 4, 2010, and February 19, 2011, as a part of her Monster Ball Tour. She performed a sold-out show on June 28, 2014, for her Artrave: The Artpop Ball Tour.
Beyoncé performed at the venue for the first time on The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour. The show sold out within its first few days of sales and took place on July 26, 2013.
Journey and Rascal Flatts made a stop at the hall for one-night shows, performing separately.[when?]
On May 22, 2015, The Who stopped at the Hall to celebrate their 50th anniversary on their tour, The Who Hits 50!
Prior to 1973, the NCAA was divided into two divisions, University and College. Boardwalk Hall hosted bowl games in both divisions; the University Division later became NCAA Division I, while the College Division was subdivided into Division II and Division III.
The nation's first-ever indoor American football field was constructed within the hall in 1930, and hosted one to three games a year through the 1930s, before the practice was halted due to World War II and not resumed until 1961. The first game was a 7–0 victory by Washington & Jefferson over Lafayette on October 25, 1930.
The 1964 Liberty Bowl was the first major (University Division) collegiate bowl game played indoors and was also the first indoor football game broadcast nationwide on U.S. television. Since artificial turf was still in its developmental stages and was unavailable for the game, the hall was equipped with a four-inch-thick grass surface with two inches of burlap underneath it (as padding) on top of concrete. To keep the grass growing, artificial lighting was installed and kept on 24 hours a day. The entire process cost about $16,000. End zones were only eight yards long instead of the usual ten yards.
6,059 fans saw the Utah Utes rout the West Virginia Mountaineers, 32–6. Dudley was paid $25,000 from Atlantic City businessmen, $60,000 from ticket sales, and $95,000 from television revenues, for a $10,000 net profit.[15] This would be the only time the game was played in Atlantic City, as Dudley moved it the following year to Memphis, Tennessee, where it remains to this day.
Boardwalk Hall was also the venue of the former Boardwalk Bowl post-season game from 1961 to 1973. From 1961 through 1967, the games were known as the "Little Army-Navy Game", featuring the College Division's Pennsylvania Military College and the Merchant Marine Academy. From 1968 through 1972, the bowl was the East regional championship for the College Division; Delaware won four times, and Massachusetts won once. The final playing of the bowl was in 1973, as a Division II quarterfinal; Grambling defeated Delaware.
The Knute Rockne Bowl, a College Division game for smaller eastern schools, was held in Boardwalk Hall from 1970 through 1972. Montclair State (1970) and Bridgeport (1971, 1972) were the victors.
In 2019, the AFL added the Atlantic City Blackjacks with home games at Boardwalk Hall.[17] They finished their inaugural season 4–8 and the entire AFL ceased operations at the end of the season.
It played host to the Atlantic City Boardwalk Bullies, an ice-hockey team, from 2001 to 2005. From 2011 to 2013, ECAC Hockey held its men's ice hockey championship at Boardwalk Hall.
During the 2010–2011 season, Boardwalk Hall hosted four home games for the Albany Devils and one home game for the Trenton Devils both affiliated with the New Jersey Devils. The Albany Devils returned to play four home games during the 2012–13 and 2013–14 seasons.[22]
Despite not having a team in Atlantic City, the American Hockey League hosted the 2012 All-Star Classic at Boardwalk Hall.
View of Atlantic City Boardwalk Hall and ocean, 2011
In 1995, the Hall was used for Monica Seles's return to tennis after she had been stabbed in 1993. It was a straight-sets victory over Martina Navratilova.[24]
The Hall was used in 1996 for the women's tennisFed Cup during which the U.S. beat Spain 5–0 in the Fed Cup women's tennis.
The Hall hosted the World Wrestling Federation's WrestleMania IV and V in 1988 and 1989, respectively, although on the television coverage it was referred to as "Trump Plaza" because the adjacent casinohotel was the primary sponsor. During the opening to WrestleMania IV, celebrity guest Bob Uecker does refer to the building as the 'convention center'. WrestleMania IV was attended by 18,165 fans while WrestleMania V had an attendance of 18,946. It is the only venue to host the annual pay-per-view event in consecutive years.
In addition to the two WrestleMania events, many other WWE shows have been held with both WWE Raw and WWE SmackDown taking place.
Midget car racing events have been held at the Boardwalk Hall since 1938. Since 2003 it hosts the Atlantic City Indoor Races, a round of the Indoor Auto Racing Championship Series.
A $90-million restoration designed by EwingCole was completed in 2001[29] and received several awards, including the 2003 National Preservation Award[clarification needed] and Building magazine's 2002 Modernization Award. The organ in the hall, which is the world's biggest, was severely damaged in the process.
Constructed between May 1929 and December 1932, the Main Auditorium Organ is the "Poseidon" Midmer-Loshpipe organ, the world's-largest, as listed in The Guinness Book of World Records. The instrument has an estimated 33,113 pipes and requires approximately 600 horsepower (450kW) of blowers to operate. The organ was badly damaged by the 1944 Great Atlantic Hurricane and has not been fully functional since. It was rendered completely inoperable by carelessness during hall renovation in 2001, and remained unplayable until 2007, when a restoration program began. As of 2024, about 60% of the organ's functionality has been restored.[30]
Boardwalk Hall's attached ballroom contains a 55-rank Kimball concert/theater pipe organ— originally installed to accompany silent movies— that was severely damaged during the hall's renovation. Compared to the Main Auditorium organ, this organ looks tiny. The Ballroom organ is actually one of the largest theater organs by rank count, second to Radio City Music Hall's WurliTzer theater organ (58 ranks).[31]
Restoration efforts have been underway, originally overseen by the Atlantic City Convention Hall Organ Society, now renamed Boardwalk Pipes, initially funded by private donations and federal Save America's Treasures grants. The organ restoration is overseen by the Historic Organ Restoration Committee, a 501(c)3 nonprofit chartered by the state of New Jersey for the restoration and preservation of the two pipe organs of Historic Boardwalk Hall. As of January 2024, the committee forecast that at current rates of funding restoration should be completed by 2030. [32]
Recognition
The convention center is one of the few buildings surviving from Atlantic City's heyday as a seaside resort in the 1920s. It was an architectural and engineering triumph, its convention space providing the largest interior space with an unobstructed view at the time.[4] It was recognized for its engineering as a Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in 1983, and as a U.S. National Historic Landmark in 1987.
Billboard magazine recognized Boardwalk Hall as the top-grossing mid-sized arena in the U.S. in 2003 and 2004. In 2003, The Ring magazine Fight of the Year was Gatti vs Ward which was hosted at the Hall.[33]
Madison Square Garden, colloquially known as the Garden or by its initials MSG, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in New York City. It is located in Midtown Manhattan between Seventh and Eighth Avenues from 31st to 33rd Street above Pennsylvania Station. It is the fourth venue to bear the name "Madison Square Garden"; the first two, opened in 1879 and 1890 respectively, were located on Madison Square, on East 26th Street and Madison Avenue, with the third Madison Square Garden (1925) farther uptown at Eighth Avenue and 50th Street.
Target Center is a multi-purpose arena located in Minneapolis that opened in 1990. It hosts major family shows, concerts, sporting events, graduations and private events. Target Corporation, founded and headquartered in Minneapolis since 1902, has held the naming rights to the arena since its opening.
Footprint Center is a multi-purpose arena in Phoenix, Arizona. It opened under the name America West Arena on June 6, 1992 at a cost of $89 million.
Crypto.com Arena is a multi-purpose indoor arena in Downtown Los Angeles. Opened on October 17, 1999, it is located next to the Los Angeles Convention Center complex along Figueroa Street, and has since been considered a part of L.A. Live. Owned and operated by Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG), it is currently the home venue of the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA) and Los Angeles Kings of the National Hockey League (NHL)—which are both owned in part by AEG's founder Philip Anschutz, as well as the Los Angeles Clippers of the NBA and the WNBA's Los Angeles Sparks.
United Center is an indoor arena on the Near West Side of Chicago, Illinois, United States. It is home to the Chicago Bulls of the National Basketball Association (NBA) and the Chicago Blackhawks of the National Hockey League (NHL). It is named after its corporate sponsor United Airlines, which has been based in Chicago since 2007 and has a hub at O'Hare International Airport. With a capacity of nearly 21,000, the United Center is the largest arena by capacity in the NBA, and second largest arena by capacity in the NHL. It also has a seating capacity of 23,500 for concerts.
The Boardwalk Bowl was a postseason college football game held indoors at the former Atlantic City Convention Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey, from 1961 to 1973.
Amalie Arena is a multipurpose arena in Tampa, Florida, that has been used for ice hockey, basketball, arena football, concerts, and other events. It is mainly used as the home for the Tampa Bay Lightning of the National Hockey League.
Meadowlands Arena is a closed indoor sports and concert venue located in the Meadowlands Sports Complex in East Rutherford, New Jersey, United States. Since closing, the state-owned facility has been used as a rehearsal stage by major concert-touring music stars and by NBCUniversal for television filming. The arena is located on New Jersey Route 120 across the highway from MetLife Stadium and the Meadowlands Racetrack, next to the American Dream shopping and entertainment complex.
Smoothie King Center is a multi-purpose indoor arena in New Orleans, Louisiana. It is located in the city's Central Business District, adjacent to Caesars Superdome. The arena opened in 1999 as New Orleans Arena and has been home to the New Orleans Pelicans of the National Basketball Association (NBA) since 2002. The New Orleans VooDoo of the Arena Football League played their home games in the arena from 2004 until the team disbanded in 2008. The VooDoo resumed play at the arena in March 2011, until after the 2015 AFL season when the franchise folded.
The Wells Fargo Center is a multi-purpose indoor arena located in Philadelphia. It serves as the home of the Philadelphia Flyers of the National Hockey League (NHL), the Philadelphia 76ers of the National Basketball Association (NBA), and the Philadelphia Wings of the National Lacrosse League (NLL). The arena lies at the southwest corner of the South Philadelphia Sports Complex, which includes Lincoln Financial Field, Citizens Bank Park, and Xfinity Live!.
Kia Forum is a multi-purpose indoor arena in Inglewood, California, United States, adjacent to Los Angeles. Located on West Manchester Boulevard, with Pincay Drive to the south and between Kareem Court and Prairie Avenue to the east and west, it is north of SoFi Stadium and the Hollywood Park Casino, and about 3 miles (4.8 km) east of the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX).
The Greensboro Coliseum Complex, commonly referred to as Greensboro Coliseum, is an entertainment and sports complex located in Greensboro, North Carolina. Opened in 1959, the complex holds eight venues that includes an amphitheater, arena, aquatic center, banquet hall, convention center, museum, theatre, and an indoor pavilion. It is the home of the UNC Greensboro Spartans men's basketball team, the Greensboro Swarm of the NBA G League, the Carolina Cobras of the National Arena League, as well as the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) with their Men's and Women's basketball tournaments.
MVP Arena is an indoor arena located in Albany, New York. It is configurable and can accommodate from 6,000 to 17,500 people, with a maximum seating capacity of 15,500 for sporting events.
Allstate Arena is a multi-purpose arena in Rosemont, Illinois, United States, northwest of Chicago, located at the corner of Mannheim Road and Lunt Avenue, just north of Mannheim Road's interchange with the Jane Addams Memorial Tollway (I-90) about 3 miles (4.8 km) north of O'Hare International Airport. The facility opened in 1980 as the Rosemont Horizon and seats 17,500 for basketball and 16,692 for ice hockey.
The Liacouras Center is a 10,206-seat multi-purpose venue which opened in 1997 and was originally named "The Apollo of Temple". The arena was renamed in 2000 for Temple University President, Peter J. Liacouras. It is part of a $107 million, four-building complex along North Broad Street on the Temple University campus in North Philadelphia. The Liacouras Center is the largest indoor, public assembly venue in Philadelphia north of City Hall.
The Philadelphia Convention Hall and Civic Center, commonly known simply as the Philadelphia Civic Center, was a convention center complex located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It developed out of a series of buildings dedicated to expanding trade which began with the National Export Exhibition in 1899. The two most significant buildings in the complex were the original main exhibition hall built in 1899, which later housed the Philadelphia Commercial Museum, and the Municipal Auditorium, later called the Convention Hall, which was built in 1931 to the designers of architect Philip H. Johnson. The site was host to national political conventions in 1900, 1936, 1940 and 1948.
Asbury Park Convention Hall is a 3,600-seat indoor exhibition center located on the boardwalk and on the beach in Asbury Park in Monmouth County, New Jersey. It was built between 1928 and 1930 and is used for sports, concerts and other special events. Adjacent to the Convention Hall is the Paramount Theatre; both are connected by a Grand Arcade. Both structures are listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
The 1964 Liberty Bowl was a college football bowl game played on December 19, 1964, at the Atlantic City Convention Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey. It was the sixth edition of the Liberty Bowl, and featured the Utah Redskins and the West Virginia Mountaineers.
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a significant disruption to different combat sports, particularly during the years of 2020 into 2021.
↑ Antonick, John (June 22, 2005). "Unique Game". West Virginia Mountaineers. MSNsportsNET.com. Archived from the original on May 26, 2011. Retrieved April 26, 2009.
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NJ Transit bus: 505, 507, 508, 509 (at Atlantic Avenue)
