It’s time to demolish the Atlantic City Race Course in Mays Landing, NJ

This is going to be an unpopular opinion, but it's time to demolish the Atlantic City Race Course in Mays Landing.

This massive structure has proudly stood tall for 77+ years but it's really starting to look bad and, let's be honest, I really don't know what could be done to save it at this point.

"Painful" has now devolved into kids breaking into the track, climbing the tower, and spray painting the top of the building.

How fantastic (and I'm being extremely sarcastic) does it look to have phallic symbols and the F-word gracing one of the tallest things in Mays Landing?

One would think some of Hamilton Township's elected officials would address this. I know it's private property, but if this is how the front of any other property in town looked, it would be taken care of. Is this how we want Mays Landing to be perceived?

Amazing history

The track opened back in the summer of 1946. Four men were behind its construction -- John B. Kelly, Sr., Fred Scholler, Glendon Robertson, and James "Sonny" Fraser. Some celebrities were shareholders in the project, too. Perhaps you've heard of Frank Sinatra and Bob Hope.

For decades, horse racing did pretty well in Mays Landing. Of course, that was in an era before there was casino gaming in Atlantic City.

Not just horses

The track was used for a number of special events and features over the years.

Its biggest crowd was in the summer of '69 for the Atlantic City Pop Festival when over 100,000 people flocked to the track, much to the surprise of local government officials and police departments.

For only $15, you got into the stands for three days of music featuring Booker T. & the M.G.'s, The Byrds, Chicago (then the Chicago Transit Authority), Joe Cocker, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, B.B. King, Little Richard, Joni Mitchell, Procol Harum, Santana, and Three Dog Night, just to name a few.

A similar music event was held just a few weeks later in upstate New York: Woodstock.

Casino gaming in the 70s

All was pretty well until the late 70s came along. That's when casino gaming was established just 14 miles down the Atlantic City Expressway and suddenly the race track had a ton of competition.

The glitz and glamour of slot machines and A-list celebrities performing every night made turning a profit at the track all that much harder.

Rumbles of financial problems surfaced in the late 90s when news started to spread that live racing would cease by the end of 1998, however, the track limped along for several more years.

From 1998 through about 2014 or '15, the track remained open offering live races only a handful of times per year.

Sadly, the Atlantic City Race Course closed in January 2015.

Today

Since the track closed, not much has happened.

So what do you do with it?

While horse racing is doing well at state-owned Monmouth Park about an hour up the Parkway, it's never going to come back to South Jersey.

And while our elected folks in Trenton like to spend money that they don't have, they're not going to drop millions of dollars into the Atlantic City Race Course.

So what do you do with it?

Years ago, an idea was floated to turn the land into a NASCAR-type track. If for no other reason, the people who now live right against that property line would never go for that.

Could you turn it into some type of concert venue? It would never succeed against the casinos.

Another idea called for buildings to house aviation companies with a high-rise hotel and convention space, but that never happened either.

Could a sports betting company swoop in and turn the building around? Maybe that's an idea.

As someone who has a huge appreciation for all things old and historic -- and South Jersey can do a better job preserving its history -- and as someone who is a fan of horse racing, it pains me to suggest that the track be bulldozed so something else can be done with this huge piece of prime real estate in the middle of South Jersey.

At the very least, can we cover up the F-word at the top of the tower?

EDITOR'S NOTE: the originally published version of this piece indicated that there are no plans for redevelopment. Within the past month, based on social media posts and comments, a potential new owner of the property has made a presentation to the Township of Hamilton. We have removed the reference to there being no redevelopment plans based on public feedback from some connected to the township.