This lithograph from 1898 isn’t just busy, it’s also big, measuring over twenty feet in length. At the time, the festivities shown on this poster looked like a day of fun, but today would surely have liability lawyers sharpening their knives. The original, in the Library of Congress, has been assembled from a number of pieces, which accounts for the grid-like pattern across the scene. I’ve attempted to reduce the largest gaps between the fragments with Photoshop, but to remove them all would be a daunting task.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Interesting. I didn’t know that Lucy the Elephant in Margate NJ had a sister in Coney Island ’til now.
Apparently the Coney Island elephant, called the “Elephantine Colossus”, was twice the size of Lucy, and was twelve stories tall. New Jersey was host to a third elephant, called “the Light of Asia” that was in South Cape May. That one was presumably a bit smaller than Lucy. The Colossus burned down, and the Light of Asia was torn down, making Lucy “the last elephant standing”. James V. Lafferty was the architect on all three, having secured a patent on the structures.
Seeing the original post made me do some googling and found the same results. Seems Lucy’s sister in Coney Island was known to be a bit umm … promiscuous.