The Atlantic City Experience

Thanks to the winner of HBO`s Boardwalk Empire, Nucky Johnson (though called Nucky Thompson on the show) has become a star decades after his death. Johnson now lands in the mob Hall of Fame (perhaps the low Atlantic City name to do so) with the likes of Al Capone and Lucky Luciano.

But in the `20s, not everyone in Atlantic City was a bootlegger.

Take the cause of Sarah Spencer Washington, an African-American woman who made her destiny as one of the first business people to produce beauty products for black women. She started a hairdressing business in A.C. in 1913, expanded into a strain of beauty schools about the state and was an important civic leader in Atlantic City, even organizing an Easter Parade for African Americans denied entry to the city`s Boardwalk Easter Parade.

And as far as we know, she never made a single heap of bathtub gin.

For the Atlantic City Free Public Library, both Johnson`s and Washington`s stories are worth telling and are featured on a new Web site - The Atlantic City Experience.

The Web site supports the library`s program of exhibits and educational programs of the sami name launched in October. The Atlantic City Experience is designed to encourage the city`s past and catch the roll of interest Boardwalk Empire has brought.

The Web site - atlanticcityexperience.org - provides some of the extensive resources contained in the library`s Alfred M. Heston Collection. The collection contains books, photographs, postcards, audio, video, digital files and memorabilia pertaining to the city`s history.

The Web site also features the online exhibit "Flying Fearless," covering the 1st U.S. air shows in 1910 - in Atlantic City and Asbury Park - and the story of flying in the country.

The library also unveiled its first special exhibit - "The Atlantic City Experience: 1920s" - in October as a protection to Boardwalk Empire. The exhibit, which will be on exhibit at the Main Library until spring 2011, consists of three displays:

• Nucky's Empire: Pictures and data about former Atlantic City boss Enoch "Nucky" Johnson. • The Atlantic City Experience: Shots of Atlantic City in the twenties and information about the city. • Life in the Roaring 20s: Photographs and data about 1920s culture in general.

Also, the library is showcasing 1920s-era clothing, including an authentic flapper dress and tuxedo.

For all Nucky managed to acomplish, there`s a lot more stories in Atlantic City then even he could imagine.