By Bruce Klauber
Atlantic City’s Million Dollar Pier is recalled for the many things it used to be. It used to be an amusement pier. It used to be the Ocean One Mall. It used to be The Pier Shops at Caesars. It used to be the Playground Pier and currently is ACXI Studios, a planned combination of retail space, educational space and film industry production space.
History shows that there has been something on the pier that fronts the Boardwalk at Arkansas Avenue, and once jutted out some 1,900 feet into the Atlantic Ocean, since it opened in July of 1906. Captain John Young, who built what is now known as Central Pier in 1891, partnered with a Philadelphia builder named Kennedy Crossan to build a new structure which Young described as “a new pier that would cost a million dollars.” And so, Million Dollar Pier was born.
At one point it had a 4,000-seat theater, exhibit halls, roller rink, aquarium and a Greek temple. Two years later Young began living in a mansion he built at the end of the pier with the address of No. 1 Atlantic Ocean.
Despite hosting early Miss America Pageants, circuses, movies, vaudeville acts and big bands, the pier struggled, declaring bankruptcy in 1936. In that year George Hamid, who would buy the rival Steel Pier in 1945, came to the rescue.
Renamed Hamid’s Million Dollar Pier, Hamid streamlined and modernized it. The revamped attraction featured big bands of the day including those led by Mal Hallett, Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw and Jimmy Dorsey, just as he did at the Steel Pier. Hamid ran Million Dollar Pier until 1948. After that it was never the same.
Next a New York Company headed by George Costello took over operations. He experimented with various admission policies ranging from a one price admission to per-ride payment, and in general, ran the place down until he was evicted. In 1949 a fire destroyed 300 feet at the end of the pier and that was the end of the ballroom, the skating rink and the aquarium.
From 1950 on, Million Dollar Pier was basically an amusement pier. In 1960, Hurricane Donna destroyed another 50 feet of the pier and it limped along as a shadow of its former self until it was demolished in October of 1981 to make room for what would be known as the Kravco Company’s Ocean One Mall.
As sad as the story of Million Dollar Pier sounds, thousands of people, including me, have fond memories of the place when we were youngsters in the 1950s and 1960s. While Steel Pier also had its share of unique attractions, Million Dollar Pier, and the much smaller Steeplechase Pier, were the only true amusement piers in Atlantic City.
The Orient Express, located just outside of what was named “The Italian Village,” was an innovative and popular “dark ride” for its time and featured rows and rows of vintage pinball machines. It was a popular hangout and was always mobbed.
By 1970, Atlantic City was at its ebb economically and otherwise. I spent the weekend of July 4 in Atlantic City that year, hoping to recapture old memories and maybe make some new ones. But the experience was depressing and the Million Dollar Pier was almost deserted, save for a hardy few who lined up for a sad carnival act called “The Gorilla Woman.” That’s the one where a beautiful woman in a cage is hypnotized, slowly turns into what is supposed to be a gorilla, then escapes the cage and runs out to scare the audience. The act still runs in traveling carnival sideshows.
Atlantic City, as we know very well by now, continues to reinvent itself. The post-1981 history of what was once the Million Dollar Pier is indicative of that reinvention. The site became the Ocean One Mall and it was good, honky-tonk fun – but nothing more and nothing less.
With around 125 stores, a theater, competitively-priced restaurants, mini golf and other attractions, it was a mecca for tourists that some say should have never been changed. But in 2006 an outfit called Gordon Group Holdings sold the city and Caesars on the idea of a mall devoted to upscale retailers and top-end restaurants. Eventually called The Pier Shops at Caesars, it proved to be an idea that was instituted at the wrong time and in the wrong place. A year after its opening, the property was sold, and in 2010 was sold again.
Still, many of those who visited during the time The Pier Shops were in operation thought it was a great mix of fine stores and fine dining, often giving restaurateur Stephen Starr’s Buddakan and The Continental restaurants high points and darned good reasons to visit.
Developer and entrepreneur Bart Blatstein continues to have high hopes for Atlantic City, with one of his goals being to make Atlantic City a year-round destination. He revitalized the Showboat as a non-casino hotel by hosting spectacular events, opening the Island Water Park and installing the Lucky Snake Arcade and Sports Bar.
However, in 2015 his idea to transform The Pier Shops at Caesars into something called The Playground might have been a concept ahead of its time. Blatstein bought The Pier Shops from Caesars for a reported $2.7 million – a mere pittance – and was said to have invested $52 million into renovations. Blatstein’s idea, which worked for a short while, was to open a number of clubs with live entertainment, upscale retail stores and gourmet restaurants.
By 2019, only 10 stores were still operating. A year later, he sold it back to Caesars. Those who have visited the pier over the last several years couldn’t help but notice that only a handful of stores were still operating. Lack of parking and apparent public disinterest in what was operating were among the factors that killed it.
The story, however, is not over. As reported in the pages of Shore Local Newsmagazine and elsewhere, on Sept. 14 of this year the pier reopened as ACX1 Studios, which will eventually be, according to its new owners, “a combination of retail, restaurants, entertainment, educational space and music and film industry production space.” By way of the motion picture and television production possibilities, ACX1 executives have their sights set on making Atlantic City the “Hollywood of the East.”
It sure sounds exciting, and no doubt, Captain John Young would be proud.
Bruce Klauber is the author of four books, an award-winning music journalist, concert and record producer and publicist, producer of the Warner Brothers and Hudson Music “Jazz Legends” film series, and a working jazz drummer and vocalist since childhood. He served as Technical Adviser on the Oscar-winning film, “Whiplash,” and on the 2018 Mickey Rourke film, “Tiger.” He has been honored by Combs College of Music and Drexel University for his “contributions to music journalism and jazz performance.”
