Boardwalk Empire

14 of 14 places · 36 of 36 Moments

• The Atlantic City Boardwalk

  Absecon Inlet to Ventnor City, Atlantic City, New Jersey

  • From a history

    The series grows from Nelson Johnson’s 2002 history of Atlantic City, Boardwalk Empire: The Birth, High Times, and Corruption of Atlantic City.

  • A mile of boards

    The first boardwalk opens, a temporary walkway to keep sand out of the hotels, folded away each winter.

  • The fifth boardwalk

    After storms in 1884 and 1889 the city builds the fifth boardwalk, essentially the one walked today.

  • Three days in a cell

    Atlantic City officials jail federal Prohibition agents for three days.

  • The first casino

    Resorts opens in the old Haddon Hall on 26 May 1978, the first American casino outside Nevada.

• The Ritz-Carlton, now the Ritz Condominiums

  Iowa Avenue and the Boardwalk, Atlantic City

  • The Ritz opens

    The Ritz-Carlton opens on the Boardwalk, 18 storeys high.

  • The ninth floor

    Enoch Johnson lives in a suite on the ninth floor, wearing a fresh red carnation in his lapel each day.

  • The eighth floor

    The series moves its Nucky Thompson one floor down, to the whole eighth floor of a fictional Ritz.

  • Condominiums

    The hotel becomes 322 homes and six commercial suites.

  • Sheriff, then treasurer

    Johnson is Sheriff of Atlantic County from 1908 to 1911 and County Treasurer from 1911 to 1939.

  • The 1929 meeting

    Johnson hosts the Atlantic City Conference of organised-crime leaders, Al Capone among them; a widely shared photograph of the two together is of doubtful authenticity.

  • Tax evasion

    Johnson is convicted of tax evasion, sentenced to ten years and fined $20,000; he enters Lewisburg on 11 August 1941 and is paroled on 15 August 1945. He dies in Northfield in 1968, aged 85.

• Boardwalk Hall

  2301 Boardwalk, Atlantic City

  • Convention Hall

    Convention Hall opens on the Boardwalk after three years’ building.

  • 33,112 pipes

    The Midmer-Losh organ, seven manuals and over 1,200 stop tabs, is about 60 per cent restored by 2024.

• The Steel Pier

  1000 Boardwalk, Atlantic City

  • A steel pier

    The Steel Pier opens, 1,000 feet out over the ocean.

  • The salt-water Barnum

    After the 1924 fire Frank Gravatt buys the pier and fills it with dance bands, cinemas and Sousa.

• The Knife and Fork Inn

  3600 Atlantic Avenue, Atlantic City

  • The Commodore’s club

    The Knife and Fork opens as a private club under Louis Kuehnle.

  • Babette’s

    The series’ Babette’s is based on the Knife and Fork; a replica is built for one big scene.

• Steiner Studios

  Brooklyn Navy Yard, Brooklyn

  • Five seasons

    Boardwalk Empire begins on HBO on 19 September 2010 and ends on 26 October 2014: five seasons, 56 episodes, created by Terence Winter.

  • 4.81 million

    The pilot draws 4.81 million viewers on 19 September 2010, HBO’s highest-rated series premiere since Deadwood; Scorsese wins the Emmy and the DGA Award for directing it.

  • The Albatross

    Allen Coulter films Steve Buscemi on the Albatross Hotel set at Steiner; its patio has a twin on the Far Rockaway shore.

• The boardwalk lot, Greenpoint

  Commercial Street at Clay Street, Greenpoint, Brooklyn

  • Scorsese’s pilot

    Martin Scorsese directs the pilot in June 2009 in and around New York, on a budget of $18 million. It opens in January 1920 and follows the days before Prohibition and the night it begins.

  • Stacked like Lego

    Shipping containers, spray-painted blue and later sheathed in riveted stainless steel, are stacked into a bluescreen that also stores the gear; black curtains cover the shots that need no blue.

  • Every sky replaced

    Brainstorm Digital adds beach and ocean plates, replaces the sky in every shot, and builds hotel towers from matte paintings and 3D; the pilot’s Times Square is entirely computer-made.

  • Only black and white

    No colour photographs of the period can be found, so the team works from black-and-white archive pictures and hand-tinted views, and talks to people who lived through it.

  • The lot is let go

    The Greenpoint boardwalk is abandoned for the fourth season; a shorter boardwalk, often extended digitally, takes over.

• The Rockaway Boardwalk, Far Rockaway

  Beach 9th Street to Beach 126th Street, Queens

  • Three boardwalks in one

    For the last season Groom builds the 1868, 1897 and 1931 boardwalks as one, nearly twice the length of the pilot’s, and a small piece on the beach at Far Rockaway.

  • Looking out to sea

    The Albatross patio is rebuilt on a standing set by the Far Rockaway shore so scenes can overlook the Atlantic.

  • The Onyx

    The Onyx club’s entrance, with a lit sign, blue screens and digital effects, is set on the Rockaway Boardwalk for the fourth season.

  • Sandy

    Hurricane Sandy destroys much of the wooden Rockaway Boardwalk; it is rebuilt in concrete.

• The Tennis House, Prospect Park

  West Drive, Prospect Park, Brooklyn

  • Sally’s bar

    Havana’s hotel bar is filmed in Prospect Park’s Tennis House; Sally’s ornamental bar comes from a Park Slope building via a Brooklyn salvage yard.

• The Municipal Building, 1 Centre Street

  1 Centre Street, Manhattan

  • Havana in Manhattan

    For the fifth season’s Havana, Bill Groom shoots a cobbled street with columns at the Municipal Building after scouting elsewhere.

• Audubon Terrace

  Broadway between 155th and 156th Streets, Manhattan

  • A plaza with a fountain

    Audubon Terrace plays a Havana plaza; palm trees are made from Los Angeles trunks and Florida fronds.

• The Park Avenue Armory

  643 Park Avenue, Manhattan

  • The Commodore’s house

    The Veterans Room plays the inside of the Commodore’s house in the first two seasons.

• Sylvan Terrace

  Between St. Nicholas Avenue and Jumel Terrace, Washington Heights

  • A lane of wooden houses

    Sylvan Terrace plays the street where Nucky moves his mistress early in the series.

• Historic Richmond Town

  441 Clarke Avenue, Staten Island

  • Staten Island

    Filming begins at Historic Richmond Town in March 2012.