Weird NJ
Those of us who are from New Jersey have never questioned why there is a magazine called Weird NJ. It is a land of odd characters, strange ironies, and who-knows-what happening deep in the woods (whether’s it’s occult practices or body dumpings). In order to keep my own head filled with useful weirdness, I frequently check in online with my old newspaper, The Press of Atlantic City, where I found this story. Essentially, the mayor of Atlantic City went missing for two weeks — just got in his car and drove away — and now has returned to resign. The getting in the car and leaving part we can all understand — it’s the returning to resign part I can’t follow.
Mayor Bob Levy had claimed to be a Green Beret in Vietnam who had won several medals in the commission of his duties. None of that was true, as you can read here. The Press of Atlantic City did a stone-cold expose, Levy had a mental collapse, and now he’s gone. I seem to recall former mayors of Atlantic City serving prison time while remaining mayor. In this day and age, I have to wonder what has happened to the sheer ballsiness of Atlantic City mayors. It’s a sad day for would-be Huey Longs everywhere.
A side note that some of us may enjoy about The Press of Atlantic City.
When I was a kid, the paper was called The Atlantic City Press — a pretty good name, when you think about it. Everyone I knew had a beloved nickname for it — The Atlantic City Mess — because it was riddled with errors. (Although to my eye The Los Angeles Times has many, many more errors of commission and omission on a daily basis and, let’s be fair, many more resources.) About when I was in high school, the paper changed its name to The Press because their distribution covered much of southern New Jersey, which put them in competition with the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Courier Post, and because, honestly, nobody wanted to be associated with Atlantic City any more. Shortly after that, casino gambling was voted in, Atlantic City started a turnaround, and the error of the name change became apparent. So rather than switch back, they tagged “of Atlantic City” onto the end of the moniker. So now it’s a badly named newspaper.
I worked there from 1977 or so, when the offices actually were in Atlantic City, until 1980 (by which time we had moved to the unaptly named Pleasantville), starting at age 14 as a classified ad taker and moving my way up to full-time classified ad sales until having a falling out with management. We were trying to unionize, and management decided to make an example of the kid. I was asked to fight that but chose not to, and shortly afterward went into business and then to college. (I had graduated high school early.) A few years later, the Press was hiring copy editors, they did a recruitment from the literature program I was enrolled in in my college, and I took the test and passed. (The only one to do so.) That put me back at the Atlantic City Press, this time as a copy editor, then senior copy editor, then production editor. I was 24. Every day that I was there, as you can see by the above unconscious misuse of the the newspaper’s name, I wished it would just fix its damn name. But I loved the paper and the job with all my heart.
October 13th, 2007 at 4:49 pm
Yes, newspapers can be very fun. My first job out of college was as the associate editor of the Burbank Scene, a weekly paper in Burbank, and then soon the editor. I was hired away as a reporter for the Burbank Daily Review. For a while I knew EVERYTHING that was going on in your little town of Burbank!
As the editor of the Scene, I covered every beat, including police, fire, city council, board of education, and the occasional cat stuck in a tree and haunted house. I took all the pictures and laid out the paper too. Luckily, I had two staff members: one who took care of the ads and another who covered sports. It was really great having my own little paper.
Don’t know if these papers still exist, but I enjoyed them.
At least good to know that even with modern technology, newspapers still exist!
October 20th, 2007 at 10:27 am
The Bob Levy story alone wins points with me, it should be something on the order of ” Where’s Waldo? ” , such is the ongoing the anti-climax of political hacks that continue to catch the eye of Governor Corsine, who would really like the State of N.J. to step in and run the whole town. The improvement, even with a corrupt State bureaucracy would STARK STARING. And yep, The Press is still nothing short of Atlantic City’s newspaper of record.
Of course now that Miss America, along with Atlantic City’s only remaining gay bar (there was once over 25 of them) have both folded their tents and left, there’s scant little to write about. Save for disappearing Mayors.
J
(It needs to be noted I’m a NATIVE Atlantic City-ite, 52, I recently moved to the ‘boonies’ and now reside on Indian Cabin Road, lauded in Wierd N.J. as the State’s most haunted roadway, that’s right, a haunted ROAD. Pretty cool, no?)
December 16th, 2007 at 11:54 pm
[…] native of southern New Jersey continues to call “The Atlantic City Press,” as discussed here previously), reads thusly: Collector buys valuable comic from attic […]