Travelogue of An Armchair Traveller: Lucy

Addendum dated June 19, 2014 - At the time of writing this post I was under the impression that Lucy is the World's Biggest Elephant. However I stand corrected, as only couple of days back I found that the Erawan Museum Sculpture is the biggest. Lucy is probably second biggest.

Lucy the Elephant, a gigantic six-story high elephant-shaped building in Margate City, New Jersey is the World's Biggest Elephant. Constructed in 1882, it is the oldest example of animal shaped (zoomorphic) architecture.

The jumbo sized pachyderm made of wood and tin sheeting weighs about 81.6 tonnes (90 tons). It 19.7 metres (65 feet) tall, 18.3 metres (60 feet) long and 5.5 metres (18 feet) wide.

The elephantine shaped building was brain child of James Vincent Lafferty, Jr.; a property developer who wanted to advertise/sell real estate and attract tourism in South Atlantic City area, which is now known as Margate. He was so fascinated with his novel idea that he even had it patented and in 1882 got a patent giving him the exclusive right to make, use or sell animal-shaped buildings. Two more similar structures were also built but didn't survive. Lucy was also scheduled for demolition but was saved by "Save Lucy" campaign in 1970 and was renovated and shifted to present location. In 1976 it was declared a National Historic Landmark.

Lucy is hollow inside and has been used for many purposes; a restaurant, a tavern, a house. It is now a famous tourist attraction and houses a small museum cum souvenir shop. Tourists enter it through a staircase in one of its leg and go right up to the open air howdah on its back, from where they enjoy a panoramic view of the beach and the sea.