Atlantic City in the 1960s and early ’70s was poor, run down and nothing particularly special in terms of resort attractions.
It took Lyndon Baines Johnson to let most of the world learn about that.
A year after John F. Kennedy was assassinated, Johnson, his vice president, was the presumptive Democratic nominee for president.
The Democratic National Convention was held in Atlantic City that year, which on paper sounded like a good idea.
“It turned out to be a disaster,” said Steven Perskie, a retired Superior Court judge and former Democratic assemblyman who helped get gambling legalized in Atlantic City in a statewide vote that occurred 50 years ago, on Nov. 2, 1976.
