In the premier slated for Sunday of Boardwalk Empire, the HBO drama set in Prohibition-era Atlantic City, the town's de facto boss, Enoch Johnson, marks the arrival of Prohibition with a decadent, New Year's Eve-style party. This was Atlantic City's first major reinvention into the nation's original Sin City. Incorporated in 1854, Atlantic City began life as a spa town and developed into a popular resort. "It was the first city in the country built from scratch and devoted entirely to the production and public consumption of entertainment," writes Temple historian Bryant Simon in Boardwalk of Dreams: Atlantic City and the Fate of Urban America.