35th Anniversary Memories: The Boss
AC Weekly is gearing up to present a very special edition of the paper coming out on Nov. 5, celebrating 35 years of service to the community as the region’s entertainment bible. We began as Whoot! The Entertainment Paper for Nite Owls back in 1974. As a preview for our special edition, I’ll be presenting a series of blogs celebrating our 35 years beginning today with a story about the publisher, Lew Steiner. As you’ll soon find out, we’ve known each even longer than the 30 years we have worked together.
My collaborations with Lew Steiner began in the fourth grade at Ventnor Ave. School in Ventnor, NJ. We weren’t in the same class, but we both were minor players in Mrs. Cook’s fourth grade play about eating right, which involved a boy who was on trial for not eating healthy. Lew was a member of the court; I was “more milk.”
Later we went to Atlantic City High together. Eventually we attended college together at this brand new school that opened in the fall of 1971 on the Atlantic City Boardwalk at the Mayflower Hotel, Stockton State College. There we worked together on the college paper The Argo. I wrote movie reviews as the Moviejunkie and did sports. He helped get the paper out at a variety of jobs.
While still in school Lew decided to start his own entertainment paper. Just 20 years old, with the help and backing of his parents, Herb and Marcia Steiner, Lew got Whoot! published in June, 1974. It was tiny little paper that came out weekly in the summer and monthly or bi-monthly in the winter. This was two years before New Jersey passed the AC gambling bill, but he made it work by emphasizing coverage of the thriving nightclub scene.
It was the following year that Lew decided to expand his coverage by adding movie reviews and asked me to provide them. I slipped my reviews under a garage door in Somers Point.
Thirty five years later, after some incredible growth spurts, Atlantic City Weekly remains a vital part of the community with Lew Steiner still on board as the publisher, after selling the business to Review Publishing in 2000.
We’ve come a long way since those modest beginnings and we aren’t looking to retire anytime soon.
