Lucy the Elephant is a 6-story elephant-shaped building located along the beach in Josephine Harron Park in Margate, New Jersey. Lucy is the world’s largest elephant and the only one in America designated as a National Historic Landmark. Built in 1881 by eccentric real estate developer James Lafferty, Lucy has served — at different times — as a hotel, restaurant, office, cottage, and briefly as a tavern, until unruly drunks nearly burned her down. She currently serves as a tourist attraction. Visitors enter through a spiral staircase in her left rear leg that goes through her insides all the way up to the howdah on her back, providing a spectacular 360ยบ view of the surrounding shore area. It cost $25,000 to build the 65-foot high, 60-foot long, 18-foot wide elephant, which weighs about 90 tons and is made of nearly a million pieces of wood.
