Just began reading a fascinating brand new History/Biography book titled; "Chance Of A Lifetime" about the fabled 500 Club in Atlantic City and Nucky Johnson and Skinny D'Amato that is written by Grace D'Amato. ISBN 0-945582-75-7

Pictured in the book are the 500 Club chips that are illustrated in my A.C. Catalog along with actual photos of the 500 Club and the Bath & Turf Club.

On page 147 is an interesting reference .... "Skinny had a casino in the Garibaldi Club, next door to the 500 Club, where islanders (Atlantic City is an island) and tourists found themselves in the company of some very swank people. Among the clebrity guests were Sinatra and orchestra leader Harry James and his wife, Betty Grable. Though an actress by trade, Grable is best known as the World War II pin-up girl whose shapely image gave morale-deprived soldiers so much to imagine. When the buxom Grable gambled at Skinny's casino, dealer purposely placed the dice at a distance from her in the hope of glimpsing her cleavage as she bent over."

My question is; Has anyone ever heard of the Garibaldi Club? My supposition is that perhaps the 500 Club chips were actually the chips used at the Garibaldi Club which was next door.

Lots of never seen before great photos are published in this book. I would recommend it to anyone interested in the history of Atlantic City ... especially from the 1930's-40's to date.

"Chance of a Lifetime is the inside story of that fantastic time by one who saw and heard it firsthand. Author Grace D'Amato, a New Jersey native, was orphaned and spent her teenage years in her grandmother's Atlantic City home. She married William D'Amato in 1945 (who managed his brother Skinny's 500 Club)when she was eighteen and he was thirty-three. Willie died in 1990. In this intimate account of the city, the club and the famous and infamous people who passed through, the author shares a very personal view of the naughty Queeen of Resorts. The reader can almost imagine sitting in the zebra-print booth at the old "Five" when she drops by to tell the storied history of this 20th-century playground by the sea. Grace Anselmo D'Amato currently lives in Margate, NJ where she is at work on her second book."