Published: Monday, June 5, 2006
Updated: Monday, June 5, 2006
Mr. Peanut to the rescue.
Next month, that iconic symbol of the Planters empire is scheduled to return to the Boardwalk in the form of a sculpture placed in Kennedy Plaza. It's a nod to the past when a Planters shop was a fixture on the boards.
The nattily dressed nut's return is striking in its contrast to other benchmark images that have bid adieu to Atlantic City recently. It would seem they have been turned off by the town that is Always Turned On.
The exodus began when Miss America Pageant waved her way to Las Vegas. It continued as Hasbro announced plans for Monopoly: The Here and Now Edition, sans any representation of its local roots. April saw removal of the state-themed statues along the Boardwalk. Thursday began with the demolition of downtown's faux lighthouse.
So, what gives? In 10 months these symbols of the city have disappeared, or threatened to. Do these closely timed events signal a trend?
“To be honest, I've been focusing on what we've been gaining,” says Jeffrey Vasser, executive director of Atlantic City Convention & Visitors Authority, of the city's renaissance as a shopping and dining destination. “And that overshadows what might have been lost.”
There are those, and Atlantic City author and historian Vicki Gold Levi is one, who believe the idea that icons are leaving is silly. Miss America, she argues, will always call Atlantic City home. There will only ever be one true version of Monopoly.
As for those statues ... c'mon. There's nothing iconic about them, Levi says. Mr. Peanut is an icon. Boardwalk Hall is an icon that contains another: the world's largest pipe organ.
“It's all a matter of how you look at it,” she says.
Temple University history professor Bryant Simon says cities are always in the business of creative, or not-so-creative, destruction. The old is brought down to make way for the new. Symbols are no different, slices of nostalgic that have little to do with Atlantic City's current identity.
“Gambling created an entirely new city that shares almost nothing except the physical space with the city of the past,” says Simon, author of “Boardwalk of Dreams: Atlantic City and the Fate of Urban America.” “The money's made in the casinos, and the tax revenue it generates. I don't think not having Monopoly is going to mean somebody doesn't bet a hard eight.”
And yet Vasser is keenly aware of preserving the memory of these once larger than life emblems fading from national prominence. Take Monopoly, for example. He encounters visitors who have no idea the board game was based on the city grid.
Simon says that's not surprising. Back in the day, when Atlantic City was a destination, the whole city was the destination. People walked the streets. They meant something. Today they are more often than not a way to reach casino floors.
“For all the recent success of Atlantic City to generate dollars for investors,” he says, “it's lost its iconic status.”
It's up to the city's historical stewards to keep these signposts from fading permanently. Like Princeton Antiques Book Shop owner Bob Ruffolo says, icons always have a place.
Take heart in the example of Mr. Peanut, who is bucking the trend by settling down on the one Atlantic City icon that rules all others and isn't going anywhere.
“The Boardwalk is the asset, the signature of the city, its calling card,” Simon says. “If you told me the Boardwalk was going, then you'd have something funky going on.”
TKPN
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