The Seven Story Elephant Hotel

Standing seven stories tall on Coney Island, the Elephantine Colossus was a giant wooden hotel shaped like a pachyderm. It featured thirty-one rooms and served as a bustling concert hall before vanishing in a massive fire.

This bizarre structure was the work of inventor James V. Lafferty, who loved building elephant-shaped attractions to promote his real estate. Guests could walk through its legs and explore rooms tucked inside its massive belly. While the Coney Island giant burned down in 1896, its predecessor, Lucy the Elephant, still stands today in New Jersey. It remains one of the most eccentric examples of novelty architecture in American history.