With all the smartphone games available, I don’t hear about people playing board games much anymore. Only two stick out in my mind as being able to stand the test of time. Those are Monopoly and Scrabble. When I was a kid, I used to like playing with the Monopoly game itself. The red hotels, green houses, little metal tokens and the board decorated with all those streets are enough to light up a kid’s imagination. Did you know those streets exist in real life?
The Monopoly game streets are all named after streets in Atlantic City. Ruth Hoskins is credited with coming up with those Monopoly game street names back in 1929. She had her own version of Monopoly, and she named the streets so they would match the streets where her friends lived.
Scout, from Scouting New York, was driving near Atlantic City last weekend. He decided to make a detour to snap some pics of the Monopoly game streets IRL. It’s interesting to see them like this. I had created pictures of what these streets looked like in my mind, and I’ve held onto those imaginary pics for decades. Seeing them like this is different though. I just never imagined them looking so…real.
If you click over onto the Scouting New York link (above), you can see the entire collection and a little description of each one. For example, there’s a J. Crew on Baltic Ave, States Ave runs alongside the Showboat Casino, and Virginia Ave ends at the Taj Mahal.
Park Place was always my favorite Monopoly game street to own. According to Scout, “Park Place was indeed named for a park, but that park is now gone, built over by Bally’s. Today, Park Place is a small stub of a road adjacent to Brighton Park. Fun Fact: Park Place is one of the least landed-on spots in the game.” The next time I play Monopoly, I’ll probably think of these real streets instead of the fake ones I created in my mind when I was a kid. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not. Enjoy!
Monopoly Game Properties IRL
(finally see what those streets really look like)
Via: [PetaPixel]
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