It was once the most famous building in the world that no longer exists. If you stand on the Atlantic City Boardwalk today, right where Indiana Avenue meets the ocean, you’re looking at a massive, glittering casino complex. But for most of the 20th century, that patch of sand was home to the Traymore Hotel Atlantic City. It wasn't just a hotel. It was a geological event made of concrete and gold leaf.
I’ve spent years looking at old postcards of the Traymore. Honestly, they don’t do it justice. We’re talking about a resort that started as a tiny ten-room cottage in 1879 and mutated into a 600-room pre-war masterpiece. By the time the famous architect William Price got his hands on it in 1914, he turned it into something that looked like it belonged in a dream or a futuristic version of Byzantium. It had these massive tan domes that dominated the skyline. People called it the "Taj Mahal of the Boardwalk" decades before Donald Trump ever thought of using that name for his own casino.
Why the Traymore Hotel Atlantic City was a Literal Masterpiece
Most people today think of Atlantic City as a place for slot machines and cheap buffets. The Traymore was the opposite. It represented an era of "grand hotels" that we basically don’t have anymore. Architecture critics like Vincent Scully often pointed to the Traymore as the pinnacle of American resort design. It wasn't just big; it was smart. Price used reinforced concrete—which was a pretty new tech at the time—to create these sweeping, organic curves that resisted the salt air better than the wood-frame firetraps nearby.
Inside? It was pure decadence.
The hotel featured the "Submarine Grill," where guests ate in a room decorated like the ocean floor. It had fish tanks and iridescent glass that made you feel like you were underwater without the whole "drowning" part. There was also the Rose Garden, a massive outdoor patio on the eleventh floor where the wealthy would sit and watch the Atlantic. You've got to realize that in 1920, sitting eleven stories up with an unobstructed view of the ocean was like going to outer space. It was the highest luxury imaginable.
The Slow, Painful Decline
Everything changed after World War II. You see, the Traymore Hotel Atlantic City thrived because people took trains to the shore and stayed for a month. Once the interstate highway system arrived and people started flying to Vegas or Florida, the "Grand Dame" of the Boardwalk started to look like a fossil.
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The maintenance costs were terrifying.
Imagine trying to keep 600 rooms of gilded plaster and salt-eroded concrete pristine when your occupancy is dropping every year. By the late 1960s, the hotel was a ghost of itself. The guests were older. The paint was peeling. The once-famous European service was replaced by a skeleton crew just trying to keep the lights on. It’s kinda sad when you look at the photos from that era. You can see the grime on the domes.
Then came the hammer.
The Implosion Heard Round the World
In 1972, the owners decided the Traymore was worth more as a vacant lot than a hotel. This was before Atlantic City legalized gambling in 1976, so there was no "casino savior" on the horizon yet. The demolition of the Traymore Hotel Atlantic City remains one of the most famous—and arguably most tragic—events in the city's history.
They didn't just wreck it. They blew it up.
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It happened in stages during the spring of 1972. The final implosion on May 26 was a massive public spectacle. People stood on the Boardwalk and cried. It was the largest controlled demolition of a resort hotel in the world at that time. Watching those iconic domes crumble into a heap of gray dust signaled the end of the "Golden Age" of Atlantic City. It paved the way for the era of the high-rise casino, but at a massive cultural cost.
Common Misconceptions About the Traymore
A lot of people think the Traymore was torn down to build a casino. That’s actually not true. It was torn down four years before the referendum that legalized gambling. The owners just thought the building was a liability.
Another weird myth is that the hotel was structurally unsound. While it had some "concrete cancer" (saltwater getting into the rebar), many engineers at the time argued it could have been saved. It was built like a fortress. In fact, the first few attempts to blow it up failed because the building was so damn sturdy. It literally resisted its own death.
The Legacy of Indiana Avenue
If you go to the site today, you'll find Caesars Atlantic City occupying much of that footprint. But the "vibe" is totally different. The Traymore was about the ocean; modern casinos are about the interior—windowless rooms designed to keep you at the craps table.
The loss of the Traymore is why we have historic preservation laws in many beach towns today. It was the "canary in the coal mine." When people saw how easily a world-class masterpiece could be turned into a parking lot, they started fighting to save places like the Ritz-Carlton and the Marlborough-Blenheim (though the latter was also eventually lost).
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What We Can Learn from the Traymore's Fate
- Architecture is temporary, but the memory of it is weirdly permanent. People who never even stepped foot in the Traymore still talk about it like a lost relative.
- Maintenance is the silent killer. The moment a grand hotel stops being profitable enough to fix its roof, it's already dead.
- The "New" isn't always better. While Caesars brings in more tax revenue than the Traymore ever did in its final years, the city lost its unique architectural soul when those domes fell.
Actionable Steps for History Buffs
If you’re heading to Atlantic City and want to "find" the Traymore, here’s how to do it properly.
First, visit the Atlantic City Free Public Library. They have the "Heston Archives," which contain the original blueprints and dozens of high-res photos of the Submarine Grill. Don't just Google it; see the physical records. Second, walk to the Boardwalk at Indiana Avenue. Look at the concrete. There are small plaques and historical markers in the vicinity that detail the "Great Hotels" era.
Finally, check out the Smithville Inn or some of the older structures in nearby Ventnor. They give you a tactile sense of the materials used in that era—the heavy wood, the thick plaster, the stuff that made the Traymore Hotel Atlantic City feel more like a mountain than a building.
The Traymore is gone, but it basically set the blueprint for what a "luxury destination" should feel like. Even today, every time a new mega-resort opens in Dubai or Vegas, they are chasing the ghost of what William Price built on a Jersey beach over a hundred years ago.