Young was an Atlantic City showman who had been running ocean piers since 1891. The Million Dollar Pier was meant to be his masterpiece - a permanent stage for the kind of mass entertainment that was making Atlantic City the most visited resort city in America. Through the 1910s and 1920s, the pier ran a constant program of circus acts, vaudeville, dance bands, and exhibitions. The 1925 Miss America Pageant was held there. Dance marathons - the long, brutal endurance contests that became a Depression-era spectacle - ran on the pier from 1931 through 1933. At the ocean end, Young himself would direct daily fish-net hauls in front of paying crowds, the catch dumped on the deck so audiences could see the strange creatures that came up from the sea. Young died in February 1938 at his winter home in Florida. He was eighty-four. His pier outlasted him by another forty-three years.

After the original ownership went bankrupt in 1936, the circus impresario George Hamid took over operations in 1938 and modernized the pier as Hamid's Million Dollar Pier. He bought the rival Steel Pier in 1945 and kept the Million Dollar running through 1948. The pier passed through a chaotic 1949 - a New York syndicate leased it, then ran into legal trouble, then an arsonist set fire to the boardwalk end on September 13, 1949. The fire destroyed about 300 feet of pier including the ballroom, skating rink, and aquarium. The pier reopened with a smaller footprint. Hurricane Donna tore off a fifty-foot section in September 1960, which was never repaired and ended the daily net hauls. By 1970 the pier had a dilapidated, disconnected look. In October 1981, while the structure was being demolished for redevelopment, a suspicious fire destroyed most of what was left.

What replaced the Million Dollar Pier in 1983 was architecturally peculiar even by Atlantic City standards. Ocean One was a three-story, $40 million shopping mall built to look like an ocean liner - portholes around the perimeter, masts on the roof, employees in sailor suits. The pier was 900 feet long and 200 feet wide. It was the first non-gaming development in Atlantic City since the 1977 legalization of casino gambling, and it was built explicitly to bring families back to a boardwalk that had become heavily oriented around adult casino tourists. Ocean One had 125 stores and 28 fast-food stands. The third floor had bocce courts, shuffleboard, horseshoe pits, and miniature golf, along with 300 deck chairs facing a wall of windows. It worked for about a decade. By 2002 the mall was struggling. Gordon Group Holdings bought it, gutted it to the steel frame, and rebuilt it.

The 2006 reopening as The Pier Shops at Caesars represented the pier's pivot from mass-market mall to high-end luxury shopping. Tourneau, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Armani Exchange, Tommy Bahama, and the Apple Store all signed leases. A second-floor skybridge connected the pier directly to Caesars Atlantic City casino. A choreographed indoor fountain show called The Show, designed by the Thinkwell Group, ran on the hour. It was, briefly, one of the most ambitious retail experiments on the East Coast. Then the 2008 recession hit. Atlantic City's casino business began its long collapse as casino gambling spread across neighboring states. Internet shopping ate retail in general. By 2013 the pier had only 59 stores. By 2019 it was down to ten. The Apple Store left. Gucci left. The Show fountain was covered with flooring in 2015. The renamed Playground Pier had become a ghost mall.

On September 14, 2023, the pier reopened again - this time as ACX1 Studios, a 550,000-square-foot facility positioned as a film and television production studio, music incubator, and entertainment venue. The economics depend largely on New Jersey's film and digital media tax credits, which provide significant incentives for productions shooting in South Jersey specifically. ACX1's pitch is direct: the empty mall storefronts make natural sets. A former restaurant becomes a restaurant scene with the signs removed. A former boutique becomes a boutique scene. Production crews can sleep, edit, and shoot all within walking distance of the boardwalk. The plan includes up to 150 sets, the Laff House Atlantic City comedy club, an ACX1 brewery, and a barcade-style attraction. The fourth-floor wedding venue called One Atlantic is being restored. Whether Atlantic City becomes the Hollywood of the East remains to be seen. The pier has reinvented itself five times. Whether the sixth reinvention sticks is the bet ACX1 is making.