How Do You Move a Hotel?
In 1888, the Brighton Beach Hotel was saved from being swept away by the sea.
In 1888, one of New York’s largest hotels, the Brighton Beach Hotel, was under threat— not to make room for development, but because the building itself was in danger of collapsing into the ocean. The unthinkable happened to save it: a logistical feat involving a team of locomotives pulling the hotel 600 feet along railroad tracks to save it from being swept into the sea.1
The Brighton Beach Hotel was a multi-story wood-framed structure with deep porches, towers, and manicured lawns overlooking the boardwalk and the ocean. The Hotel opened in 1878 alongside the Brighton Beach Bathing Pavilion and the Ocean Pier. Together, this development competed with Austin Corbin’s neighboring Oriental Hotel and Manhattan Beach Hotel, crowding the shoreline with “some of the poshest digs this side of fancy town.”2
The area of Brighton Beach was developed by William A. Engeman, a millionaire who made his fortune selling mules and horses to the Union Army in the Civil War. In 1868, Engeman purchased land between Coney Island and Manhattan Beach to create a beachside resort community. A contest was held to name the area, and drawing inspiration from the British coastal town, politician Henry C. Murphy and his partners proposed the name “Brighton Beach.” By 1870, Engeman built the Ocean Hotel, which was later replaced by the larger and grander Brighton Beach Hotel with its accompanying Bathing Pavilion, Ocean Pier, and racetrack. The development could accommodate over a thousand guests for ocean bathing, walking along the water, and dining at the high end restaurants.
While the hotel’s beachfront location gave visitors immediate access to the shore, this romantic setting soon threatened the building’s very foundation with erosion. In 1888, Engeman’s son (also named William), who had taken over the business after his father’s death, funded the colossal undertaking to lift the hotel onto train tracks in order to move it further inland to escape the sweeping tide. As outlandish as it sounds, this actually happened and seemingly without a hitch.
Moving the Brighton Beach Hotel
On the day of the move, hundreds of New Yorkers came out to witness the spectacle, with the Evening World reporting that “every train car [towards Coney Island] carried a big load to the scene of operations.”
The monumental task of moving the hotel took around three months to coordinate. Engineers rested the entire structure on a bed of 120 custom-built flatcars running on 24 tracks,3 with the locomotives moving in perfect synchronization. The hotel crept forward at roughly six inches per minute, and the move itself was expected to be completed in ten days. By June, the Brighton Hotel welcomed visitors for the summer season some 550 feet further from the ocean.
Ultimately, the Brighton Beach Hotel survived another 40 years after the relocation. Prohibition, strict anti-gambling laws, a series of natural disasters, and changing leisure trends eventually marked the end of Brighton’s resort era. In 1924, the building was demolished and replaced with the Riegelmann Boardwalk.
Day in History
April 3, 1888. The entire Brighton Beach Hotel is moved inland to protect it from erosion.
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Brownstoner, “Past and Present: The Brighton Beach Hotel”
The Evening World, Tuesday April 3, 1888. Page 4.