Elephantine Colossus

A seven-story elephant-shaped hotel built on Coney Island in 1885. One of the Gilded Age's most eccentric buildings, it burned down in 1896 — now known only through historical images.

The Elephantine Colossus was one of the strangest buildings ever built in New York: a seven-story hotel and amusement complex on Coney Island, built in the shape of a giant elephant. Designed by James V. Lafferty, it stood on Surf Avenue from 1885 to 1896, when it burned down in a fire. The 31-room structure housed shops, a concert hall, and hotel rooms — including one inside the elephant's head. It was the second of three elephant-shaped buildings Lafferty constructed; the first, Lucy the Elephant in Margate City, still stands today. The Elephantine Colossus is a vivid artifact of the Gilded Age's enthusiasm for spectacle architecture, now surviving only in photographs.