Tropicana Atlantic City has a skeleton in its closet - a steel skeleton. When the Ramada Corporation purchased the derelict Ambassador Hotel in 1978 for $35 million, they intended to preserve the historic building by transforming it into the Phoenix casino hotel. The Ramada plan was similar to other recent casino hotel projects: Haddon Hall reopened as Resorts International, the Claridge was Del Webb's Claridge, and Howard Johnson's Regency Motor Hotel became Caesars Boardwalk Regency.
New Jersey's governor and the Casino Control Commission, however, insisted Ramada demolish the building and construct a completely new resort. Faced with opposing lawsuits, the two parties decided to compromise. Ramada removed the exterior but was allowed to cut costs by building their new hotel using the original steel framework of the once majestic Ambassador Hotel. The new resort, the Tropicana Hotel and Casino, opened on November 26, 1981.
The Amazing Ambassador Hotel
The Ambassador Hotel, built at a cost of $4 million, opened for business on the corner of Brighton Avenue and Boardwalk in 1919. Although the new resort had 14 stories and 400 rooms, the owners began developing an expansion plan almost immediately. The Linnard syndicate teamed with the respected Ritz-Carlton hotel chain and began adding a staggering $20 million of improvements.
A new 400-room tower doubled the Ambassador Hotel's capacity. Connecting the two towers was a mezzanine balcony featuring a playground and private school for guests' children. Also added were an expansive 500-foot-long lobby, a large indoor seawater pool, a solarium, and underground passageways to the beach.
Two blocks away, they built a new Ritz hotel with 16 stories and 600 rooms. Between the two hotels were bungalows and apartments for wealthy families, a new stately Italian garden with fountains and statuary, and a large convention hall with room for 5,000 people. The project also included boardwalk arcades with upscale shops and a serene Japanese tea garden.
When the complex opened in 1921, the Ambassador Hotel was the largest in Atlantic City. The world's wealthiest and most famous people filled the rooms. Visitors included Enrico Caruso, Bing Crosby, Eleanor Powell, and President Warren Harding.
Houdini and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Hold a Séance at the Ambassador Hotel
One June afternoon in 1922, Harry Houdini visited the Ambassador Hotel in Atlantic City to meet an old friend, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The famous author of Sherlock Holmes tales was taking a break from his lecture tour. He had been traveling across America promoting spiritualism, the belief that spirits can contact loved ones after their death. The Doyles had invited Houdini to their hotel room in hopes of convincing the skeptical escapologist by contacting his dead mother.
Sir Arthur's wife, Jean, believed she was a spirit writer, a person whose body could be used by dead souls to convey messages to their living relatives. That afternoon, Lady Jean Conan Doyle went into a deep trance while Houdini's mother used her arm to scribble 15 pages of encouragement to her son from beyond the grave. Six months later, Doyle's friendship with Houdini ended when the famous escape artist publicly revealed that the message was fraudulent. His mother could not write a word of English. In addition, despite fifteen pages of notes, there was not one message that only he and his mother would have known. She had not even mentioned that the day of the séance was her birthday.
The Mafia Conduct Business at the Ambassador Hotel in Atlantic City
A remarkable four-day meeting occurred at the Ambassador Hotel from May 13 - 16, 1929. The Mafia's most notorious leaders gathered to negotiate territorial rights during the "Atlantic City Conference". Attending were famous gangsters from across the country, including Albert Anastasia of Murder Inc., Al "Scarface" Capone, Enoch "Nucky" Johnson, Meyer Lansky, Charlie "Lucky" Luciano, and Arthur "Dutch" Schultz.
The event was the result of an increase in mob violence, particularly by Al Capone and his gang. Three months before the Atlantic City Conference, Capone had perpetrated the St. Valentine's Day Massacre in Chicago that killed seven rival gang members. A few days before he arrived in Atlantic City, Capone had killed three of his own men by bashing their heads with a baseball bat. When the meeting ended on May 16, Al Capone seems to have received their message: he turned himself in to the Philadelphia police for a minor weapons charge, allegedly for the safe sanctuary of a jail cell for a few months.
The Ambassador hotel was visited frequently by the Mafia in those days. Two years after the Atlantic City Conference, on the night of August 31, 1931, a Philadelphia gangster known as Mickey Duffy was sleeping peacefully at the Ambassador Hotel. Sometime during the night, one or more gunmen entered his room and shot him dead. The murderers were never caught.
End of the Atlantic City Ambassador
Like most of the once dazzling Atlantic City hotels of the Prohibition era, the old Ambassador Hotel slowly lost its popularity and closed during the late ‘60’s. It was not a Mafia hit man that killed the Ambassador; it was cheap air travel to more exotic parts of the world.
Now that gambling has been legalized, the corner of Brighton Avenue and Boardwalk is once again a popular destination. The Tropicana is a cheerful and vibrant Atlantic City Boardwalk hotel, but deep inside remain the bones of the deceased Ambassador Hotel.
Sources:
- Kevin Coyne, "Shore Lore: Spellbound", New Jersey Monthly, February 4, 2008, njmonthly.com
- Ed Grusheski, " Sand Castles ", Atlantic City Historical Museum, acmuseum.org
- Hoag Levins, "Glamour, Geeks, and Gangsters: Atlantic City Before the Casinos", OnSight Reports, levins.com
- New York Times, "Preserve for the Exclusive Rich at Atlantic City", New York Times, November 30, 1919, nytimes.com
- David Schwartz, "Empire Builders", Casino Connection, December 2009, casinoconnectionac.com
Ronald Campbell - Ronald T. Campbell of Hampton, New Hampshire is a professional writer and photographer whose lifelong hobby is studying history. He has ...
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