Drag Queens and Beauty Queens: Contesting Femininity in the World's Playground - Softcover

Introduction: Doing AC
At Boardwalk Hall[1] the digital marquee announces upcoming shows: a hip-hop concert, a comedy carnival, and tours of the largest pipe-organ in the world. To the right is Kennedy Plaza, and on the far right stands a life-sized bronze statue of Miss America. She holds a crown in her outstretched arms. Beneath that crown, a woman poses as her companions take pictures. They rotate until each has a chance. On the wall behind them are murals of prominent Miss America winners, including Suzette Charles, Miss New Jersey,1983, who served as Miss America in 1984 when Vanessa Williams lost the title in a scandal over nude photographs. Two little girls in flowery dresses fidget while they wait their turn to pose. A man feeds the seagulls from a dirty paper bag and is scolded by two policemen. In the distance, the Ferris wheel on Steel Pier changes colors, and past casino row, the small run-down stores line the Boardwalk; Peanut World, Irene’s, Big G’s Tattoos, Sally’s Psychic Shop, Massage Paradise, James Salt Water Taffy. Two tabby cats walk across the boards. There’s a beach colony of cats here; there always has been on the corner of New York Avenue and the Boardwalk.

To the right is the beach; to the left, framed by the Ocean Club and Ripley’s Believe it or Not! the wooden ramp descends to what used to be arguably the most famous, infamous, street in Atlantic City. Now, it is mostly empty, overgrown lots strewn with debris. Parking lots fill the rest of the spaces between random buildings. Philip and Joe, once denizens here, look around and then at each other. They both smile as they point to where favorite spots once stood. They tell stories, of sexual encounters, memorable performances, people who are no longer here to tell stories of their own. Some of these I imagine, they may not really want me to hear; or maybe they do.[2]

Atlantic City: A City “Down the Shore”[3]
Atlantic City is a place that defies simple description or explanation. It is in constant motion, like the ocean that creates its beaches and bays; a place always reinventing itself, the comeback kid, the underdog of cities. It lacks an industrial base; the economy is and has always been, based on tourism. Atlantic City, “The World’s Playground,” has entertained millions in its more than 150 years. The boardwalk has been its Main Street, its attractions always changing; bootleg alcohol, jazz, gay nightlife, and now casinos…but always against the constant backdrop-the beach. As with many tourist destinations, people move in and out, and like the tides, some wash ashore and stay for a while, and some recede back out to sea. And so too, the economic and social history of the city itself is a series of ups and downs, of economic booms and busts. The booster phrase “The World’s Playground” has given way to “Atlantic City: Always Turned On,” and now, in an effort to attract a younger, hipper crowd, a trendy, “Do AC”. 

Atlantic City’s volatility is bolstered by its renegade reputation. It has always been a place where cultural and social norms were challenged or ignored. The tourist-based economy of the resort town encouraged business owners to provide whatever was needed to make the visitors happy. During Prohibition, for example, this meant contraband alcohol. Atlantic City flaunted the country’s restrictive laws, acting as a mainstay for illegal production and sales of alcohol. Residents and tourists alike made their way to secret clubs or speakeasies or made bathtub gin at home. Organized crime syndicates emerged in the area to supply locally produced alcohol to the many customers demanding it across the country. Prohibition was essentially unenforced by the local authorities, and the city’s beachfront location and docks allowed rum-runners to bring their goods onto shore by boat. Add to this a powerful city crime boss, Nucky Johnson (made famous once again in the television series Boardwalk Empire)[4], who allegedly controlled everything from the smuggling operation to the law enforcement to the restaurants where alcohol was served, and Atlantic City was essentially a wide-open town, flagrantly violating the federal law. As Johnson famously stated unapologetically:

“We have whisky, wine, women, song and slot machines. I won’t deny it and I won’t apologize for it. If the majority of the people didn’t want them, they wouldn’t be profitable, and they would not exist.”[5]
Aided by its proximity to major population centers like Philadelphia, New York City, and Washington, DC, and its reputation for unfettered fun, Atlantic City rapidly expanded. Between 1880 and 1940, it was known to be a premier world vacation resort. From the 1920s to the 1960s, Kentucky Avenue on the north side of town enjoyed a thriving jazz scene and vibrant African American culture. Numerous bars and clubs, like Club Harlem on Kentucky, and Chicken Bone Beach, a few blocks away on Missouri Avenue, presented the best talent and biggest stars from the world of jazz. Until the 1970s, Kentucky Avenue and its Black community was the pulse of the city and a mainstay of its tourist economy.[6]On adjacent New York Avenue, the gay population of Atlantic City exploded in the 1970s. This book is an effort to describe a portion of the history of New York Avenue in Atlantic City, the gay community and drag culture that thrived there from the 1960s through the 1980s, and the decline of gay nightlife in the 1990s. In doing so, I hope to add to the scant recording and analysis of communities of marginalized people, who rely principally on oral traditions to record their history. This is particularly important, since the AIDS epidemic in Atlantic City nearly wiped out an entire generation who might have passed down this lore to the next generation.

Where the “Gurls” Are: When AC was GayC[7]
Bryant Simon, in his book Boardwalk of Dreams, describes the rise and fall of Atlantic City as a tourist destination. In his words, Atlantic City “manufactured and sold an easily consumed and widely shared fantasy,” built upon a “grand deception.”[8] It was a place where White working class and middle class tourists, many the children of immigrants, could celebrate their inclusion in American society through their consumption in the posh vacation resort. But the exclusive nature of resort vacationing was made possible by the exclusion of people of color and other marginalized groups. Simon’s account is a stark reminder of the contradictions inherent and often invisible in all tourist economies, and Boardwalk of Dreams describes some of the ugly realities of racism and homophobia that created communities of poor, disenfranchised laborers who served as underpaid workers in the resorts. Two cities emerged—a “perfect White City—the Boardwalk, hotels, and theaters—and a funky “Midway” of nightclubs, street corners and backrooms.”[9]

This book in many ways, takes off where Simon’s book ends; it aims to describe the vibrant culture and lives of one of these communities living off of the Boardwalk.”[10] The gay community that emerged on New York Avenue and the adjacent winding Snake Alley was a place where gay men and women lived, worked, and celebrated gay life. The decade of the 1970s was the apex of gay life in Atlantic City; the thriving and boisterous gayborhood, a four-block area backing the beach, boasted over a dozen bars and nightclubs and a myriad of rooming houses catering to gay clients...