Qualla: Atlantic City Convention Center

Atlantic City Convention Center: Introduction

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In the landscaped garden between the Atlantic City Convention Center and the Sheraton Hotel that adjoins it, a bronze statue of Bert Parks stands holding a crown. If a visitor walks up to the statue, puts their head inside the crown, and taps it once, sensors hidden in the bronze trigger speakers concealed behind the surrounding shrubbery. From those speakers comes Parks's voice - that warm, brassy, mid-Atlantic baritone that for twenty-five years sang "There She Is, Miss America" to crown after crown of new winners. The statue is one of the strangest pieces of interactive public art on the East Coast. It also tells you everything you need to know about what the Atlantic City Convention Center is: a building that contains 500,000 square feet of exhibit space, but cannot quite outgrow its Miss America history.

Atlantic City Convention Center: Half a Million Square Feet

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Atlantic City Convention Center opened May 1, 1997, replacing the older Atlantic City Convention Hall (now known as Jim Whelan Boardwalk Hall) as the city's primary venue for large-scale conferences and trade shows. The new center contains five exhibit halls totaling 500,000 ...

Atlantic City Convention Center: The Architecture

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The design firm Wallace, Roberts and Todd - a Philadelphia-based landscape and urban planning firm known for green city design - drew up the original plans. The senior architect on the project was Gilbert Rosenthal, a principal at the firm. The building was designed to reflect it...

Atlantic City Convention Center: Miss America

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Miss America pageant moved from its longtime home at Boardwalk Hall to the Convention Center in 1997, and the new facility was built partly to host the broadcast. Bert Parks had been the pageant's host from 1955 through 1979, twenty-five consecutive years of him singing "Ther...

Atlantic City Convention Center: Boats and Cars

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The exhibit halls have hosted everything that fits inside 500,000 square feet, which is a lot. The annual Atlantic City Boat Show fills the floor with hundreds of yachts, sportfishing vessels, and personal watercraft, raised on stands so visitors can walk under them. The Atlantic...

Atlantic City Convention Center: The Rail Terminal

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The most underappreciated feature of the Convention Center is its rail connection. The Atlantic City Rail Terminal sits directly beneath the convention floor, and New Jersey Transit's Atlantic City Line runs hourly trains to Philadelphia's 30th Street Station - a ninety-minute tr...