Georgia and Mississippi Aves. and the Boardwalk, Atlantic City, New Jersey. County/parish: Atlantic.
Added to the National Register of Historic Places February 27, 1987. NRIS 87000814.
1 contributing building.
Jim Whelan Boardwalk Hall, formerly known as the Historic Atlantic City Convention Hall, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Built during 1926–1929, it was Atlantic City's primary convention center until the opening of the new Atlantic City Convention Center in 1997. Boardwalk Hall was declared a U.S. National Historic Landmark in 1987 as one of the few surviving buildings from the city's early heyday as a seaside resort. The venue seats 10,500 people for ice hockey, and at maximum capacity can accommodate 14,770 for concerts. Boardwalk Hall is the home of the Miss America Pageant.
Boardwalk Hall contains the world's largest musical instrument, a pipe organ with over 33,000 pipes, eight chambers, the world's largest console with seven manuals and over 1000 stops, and one of two 64-foot (20 m) stops (the other found in the Sydney Town Hall). Also included in this organ are pipes operating on 100 inches of pressure, the Grand Ophicleide being the loudest and also most famous. The Guinness Book of World Records noted "a pure trumpet note of ear-splitting volume, six times louder than the loudest train whistle." However, these stops are actually well-refined and are not overpowering in Boardwalk Hall due to its huge interior.
In 2018, New Jersey approved legislation to dedicate Atlantic City's Boardwalk Hall in honor of Jim Whelan, a former mayor and state senator who died in 2017. The hall's Adrian Phillips Theater is named for a former president of the Miss America Organization.
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