Top 10 American boardwalks
By Geoffrey Warren-Boulton, Forbes Traveler / WREX.com
For nostalgic Americans, boardwalks are the stuff of summer dreams, mixing memories of salt water taffy at sunset, white-knuckled wooden rollercoaster rides, and kids with dogs racing along weathered walkways. James Lilliefors, author of America’s Boardwalks, From Coney Island to California, says boardwalks have always been “bright, alluring, loud, lucrative and very American.”
Still, as Park World magazine reported in 2007, “In the 1920s there were more than 1,500 authentic seaside amusement parks in the United States, today there are less than two dozen.” Despite these dwindling numbers, those that remain are flourishing: Where once boardwalks were merely the venue for the world’s greatest oddities, now they have a civic purpose, acting as a nexus for local business and a spur to nostalgia-based urban renewal.