ATLANTIC CITY , on Absecon Island just off the midpoint of the Jersey shoreline, has been a tourist magnet since 1854, when Philadelphia speculators created it as a rail terminal resort. In 1909, at the peak of the seaside town's popularity, Baedeker wrote "there is something colossal about its vulgarity" - a quality which it sustains today, even while beset by bankruptcy and decay. The real-life model for the board game Monopoly , it has an impressive history of popular culture, boasting the nation's first Boardwalk (1870), the world's first Big Wheel (1892), the first color postcards (1893) and the first Miss America Beauty Pageant (cunningly devised to extend the tourist season in 1921, and still held here yearly). During Prohibition and the Depression, Atlantic City was a center for rum-running, packed with speakeasies and illegal gambling dens. Thereafter, in the face of increasing competition from Florida, it slipped into a steep decline, until desperate city officials decided in 1976 to open up the decrepit resort to legal gambling .

Arriving by train, you'll be confronted by the monstrous Convention Center , which opened above the station in 1997, and houses a massive food court and standard mall shops, along with its meeting spaces and countless hotel rooms. Most of the hopeful new arrivals, however, head straight for the casinos, with an ample overspill flooding the Boardwalk and beach. Beyond the Boardwalk there is little to see in Atlantic City, although a quick walk around the eerily quiet slums of the South Inlet district makes a chilling contrast to the manic jollity a mere block away. This is not an area in which to linger for any length of time, or indeed at all at night - the danger is very real, though police have made considerable inroads over the past few years.

Atlantic City's wooden Boardwalk was originally built as a temporary walkway, raised above the beach so that vacationers could take a seaside stroll without treading sand into the grand hotels. Alongside the brash 99¢ shops and exotically named palm-readers, a few beautiful Victorian buildings that survived the wrecker's ball invoke past elegance, despite being dwarfed by the casinos and housing fast-food joints. Early in the morning, when the breezes from the ocean are at their most pleasant, the Boardwalk is peaceful, peopled only by keen cyclists and a few lost souls down on their luck.

The Central Pier offers all the fun of a fair, with rides, games and old-fashioned "guess your weight" challenges. A few blocks south, another pier has been remodeled into an ocean-liner-shaped shopping center. The small and faded Arts Center and Historic Museum (tel 609/347-5837), on the Garden Pier at the quiet northern end of the Boardwalk, has a free collection of seaside memorabilia, postcards, photos and a special exhibit on Miss America, as well as traveling art shows. A block off the Boardwalk, where Pacific Avenue meets Rhode Island Avenue, and at the heart of some of the city's worst deprivation, stands the Absecon Lighthouse . Active until 1933, it's recently been fully restored and offers a terrific view from its 167ft tower (July-Aug daily 11am-4pm, Sat also 7pm-9pm; Sept-Dec and March-June Thurs-Mon 11am-4pm; call for Jan-Feb hours; $4; tel 609/449-1360).

Atlantic City's beach is free, family filled and surprisingly clean, considering its proximity to the Boardwalk. Beaches at well-to-do Ventnor , a jitney ride away, are quieter, but charge users $3 per week. For the same fee, New Jersey's beautiful people pose on the beaches of Margate , three miles south of Atlantic City; all watched over by Lucy, the Margate Elephant at 9200 Atlantic Ave. A 65ft wood and tin Victorian oddity, Lucy was built as a seaside attraction in 1881 and used variously as a tavern and a hotel. Today her huge belly is filled with a museum of Atlantic City memorabilia, and photos and artifacts from her own history (Apr-May and Sept-Oct Sat & Sun 10am-5pm; June-Aug Mon-Sat 10am-8pm, Sun 10am-5pm; closed Nov-Mar; $4; tel 609/823-6473).