Every Street in Monopoly Is Real. This Is the Beach It Came From

Almost every name on a Monopoly board is a real street in one town by the ocean: Baltic Avenue, Park Place, and the most expensive square of all, the Boardwalk. And the game that became Monopoly was first invented as a warning against greedy landlords. This is the story of the beach behind the board. In this episode: the Lenape and Absecon Island, Jeremiah Leeds and Dr. Jonathan Pitney's health resort, the railroad of 1854 and a city map with streets named after seas and states, the Absecon Lighthouse, the first boardwalk in America (built in 1870 to keep sand out of hotels), rolling chairs and salt water taffy, Lucy the Elephant, the Marlborough-Blenheim and the Traymore, the Heinz pickle pin, the Steel Pier and the diving horse, Sonora Webster who kept diving after she went blind, the first Miss America (1921), Convention Hall and its giant organ, Prohibition and Enoch "Nucky" Johnson, the 1929 gangster conference, Chicken Bone Beach, Club Harlem and the 500 Club, Lizzie Magie's Landlord's Game and the birth of Monopoly, the 1964 convention and Fannie Lou Hamer, the 1968 Miss America protest, the casino bet of 1976, the Taj Mahal, Revel and the closures of 2014. Chapters 0:00 Intro 1:01 The Island of Mosquitoes 3:11 A Walk Made of Boards 5:21 America's Playground 7:58 The Boss of the Boardwalk 10:33 The Game on the Kitchen Table 11:46 Is This America? 13:32 The Bet 15:44 What I think Visuals: archival photographs and postcards (Library of Congress, including the John Margolies Roadside America collection, New York Public Library, Boston Public Library, National Archives and other public domain / Creative Commons sources via Wikimedia Commons), stock footage, and AI-generated reconstructions of scenes for which no photos exist. Reconstructions are illustrative. The colour photo of the diving horse is from the Steel Pier in 1978, the last year of the act. Sources Wikipedia: Atlantic City, New Jersey; History of Atlantic City; Atlantic City Boardwalk; Lucy the Elephant; Steel Pier; Diving horse; Sonora Webster Carver; Miss America; Boardwalk Hall; Enoch L. Johnson; Atlantic City Conference; Chicken Bone Beach; Club Harlem; The Landlord's Game; Monopoly (game); 1964 Democratic National Convention; Fannie Lou Hamer; Miss America protest; Gambling in New Jersey; Trump Taj Mahal; Revel Atlantic City Bryant Simon, Boardwalk of Dreams: Atlantic City and the Fate of Urban America (2004) Nelson Johnson, Boardwalk Empire: The Birth, High Times, and Corruption of Atlantic City (2002) Mary Pilon, The Monopolists (2015) Sonora Webster Carver, A Girl and Five Brave Horses (1961) #AtlanticCity #Monopoly #HiddenHistory #BeforeThePostcard