Lucy the Elephant is located in Margate, NJ. Lafferty, a real estate developer with a gift for promotion. Standing six stories tall, weighing 90 tons, covered with 12,000 square feet of sheet metal, Lucy was more than an object of fright, she was a functioning building, serving first as a hotel, then as a tavern. Since 1973 enough money has been collected in determined "Save Lucy" campaigns to restore the structural uprightness and exterior of the 90-ton wood-and-tin pachyderm.
The main room inside Lucy is 18 feet square, and 22 windows pierce Lucy's frame. The body is 38 feet long by 80 feet in circumference. Lucy's neck is 6 feet long by 48 feet in circumference; the legs are 22 feet long by 10 feet in diameter. Lucy's ears are 17 feet long by 10 feet wide; each one weighs approximately 2,000 pounds. Lucy's tusks are 22 feet long, the tail is 26 feet long and the eyes are 18 inches in diameter.
Lucy is supported by timber framing concealed in the trunk and for legs; Lucy's original primary structure consisted of three timber trusses. There was one longitudinal truss on each side of Lucy's body, each spanning over two legs, and one transverse truss across the rear. The bottom chords of the longitudinal trusses carried the floor joists that spanned between them, while the upper chords supported the howdah. Curved wood framing and sheathing was built onto this trussed structure to form a tin skin, which shaped the elephant's body. Access to the building was through staircases built into the rear legs. The interior was essentially one large room inside the body as well as the head. Originally, closets flanked the main room in the uneven spaces created by Lucy's curving form. Interior partitions with pink-tinted plaster above stained wainscoting divided the closets from the main room. .
Rescued by the city of Margate, a major renovation began, centered on the volunteer "Save Lucy Committee".
