A cannabis retailer intends to raze a century-old church in Atlantic City that was once the site of a notorious mob associate’s wedding.
Today, the former Victory First Presbyterian Deliverance Church sits abandoned at the corner of Pacific and Pennsylvania avenues. The building was damaged in 2012 during Superstorm Sandy and the congregation relocated to a new church in 2018. It also served as home to a well-known soup kitchen that has also found a new home.
Records show the property had been owned by the First Presbyterian Church of Atlantic City beginning in 1885.
Enoch “Nucky” Johnson, the political boss and one-time Atlantic County sheriff who worked in organized crime, married his second wife, Florence Hosbeck, in the church in 1941 on the eve of being incarcerated for crimes tied to the mafia.
Johnson’s mob involvement was the subject of the 2002 biographical book that inspired “Boardwalk Empire,” the acclaimed series produced by HBO. Actor Steve Buscemi played the character inspired by Johnson.
The building will be the site of an inaugural dispensary for Pure Genesis, a cannabis retailer, the business’s co-founder and CEO Faye Coleman told NJ Advance Media. A five-year-old demolition order outdates the property’s purchase by the company, Coleman said. It was sold to the Pure Genesis in 2022, according to property records.
“We’re looking to bring 50-plus jobs to Atlantic City, salaries north of $30,000,” Coleman said. “As for us, we feel like we’re adding value coming into the community of Atlantic City.”
At its most recent meeting, the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority, a state government agency driving local projects funded by casino earnings, passed a resolution supporting having a cannabis dispensary operate on the property. The dispensary would add to an already busy cannabis-retail industry in Atlantic City.
Lance Landgraf, the authority’s director of planning and development, who also serves as a Ventnor City commissioner, told members on June 25 that the church would be demolished under the redevelopment plan.
Coleman said she plans to open by early next year, but added no demolition permits have been filed with local construction officials.
Plans are to construct a two-story building for indoor and outdoor cannabis consumption, which will be open seven days a week, Landgraf said.
One board member during a vote approving the dispensary asked if the property was deemed a place of historical significance. “Depending on your opinion, but it’s not officially a historic site,” Landgraf said.
Located in Hard Rock Hotel Casino’s shadow, the church now has a damaged roof and shattered windows, becoming an eyesore after religious services stopped there in 2018. Some interior spaces, Coleman said, have asbestos.
Floors were also damaged, she said. Pews over the years were also set on fire by squatters.
Churchgoers have moved across town to a new building on Leeds Avenue, leaving behind the Victorian-style building. The church’s administration couldn’t be reached for comment.
On July 30, 1941, Nucky Johnson married his second wife at the church, the ceremony taking place one day before he headed to prison having been convicted of tax evasion, the New York Times reported.
Enoch L. "Nucky" Johnson, 58, and his bride, the former Florence Osbeck, 33, a one-time Philadelphia showgirl, cut their wedding cake in Johnson's Atlantic City cottage a short time after the marriage ceremony on July 31, 1941.ASSOCIATED PRESS
Nelson Johnson, author of the famed book that sparked the hit television series, told NJ Advance Media hundreds of people attended the celebration, which shifted from the church to a party blocks away at the Ritz-Carlton.
“He drew a big party,” Nelson said. “That would be quite fitting for someone like him.”
The church for years was also home to Sister Jean’s Kitchen, an outreach effort that continues to offer meals to Atlantic City’s homeless population. Founded by Jean Webster, a former casino cook affectionally known as “Sister Jean,” and called the “Mother Teresa of Atlantic City,” the hunger-fighting efforts continue under a nonprofit.
The organization has since relocated to another church on Pennsylvania Avenue after the building was deemed unsafe in 2019.
A landmark sign is anchored outside of the building to memorialize Webster’s accomplishments.
The church, Johnson said, is likely one of the few remaining relics from Atlantic City’s heyday before the 1950s, ahead of when casinos arrived to restore its economy.
At the time Nucky Johnson married at the church, mostly working-class people and government employees lived in its neighborhood, more quaint than it is now after decades of commercial development, Nelson Johnson said.
“This is one of the last vestiges that is left,” Johnson said. “Most of it’s gone, and that’s just reality.”
Jean Webster works dishing up plates of food for the homeless in a 2008 photo.SL
Stories by Eric Conklin
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