Brighton Beach

Moving the Grand Brighton Beach Hotel: How 112 Train Cars Saved a 19th-Century Resort

In a moment in Brooklyn history that testifies to both the powers of man and Mother Nature — and foreshadows today’s concerns about global warming and flooding — the former Brighton Beach Hotel was saved from erosion by being hauled 600 feet inland. Built in 1878, the low-slung, 174-room hotel stretched 170 yards long by 15…

by Hannah Frishberg

02/17/2016 0

Built in 1878, the low-slung, 174-room hotel stretched 170 yards long by 15 yards deep along the shore. It offered its guests, largely middle-class borough residents, broad verandas as well as private railroad transport from Manhattan.

Barely a decade after the hotel opened, however, the beach was growing too close to the front door. Waves were eroding the foundation and threatening to take the Hotel Brighton out to sea.

In a thought-out attempt to save the hotel, the owner contracted the Brooklyn & Brighton Beach Rail Road Company to drag his beachside resort away from the water. So, on April 3, 1888, the three-story hotel was loaded onto 112 cars across 24 tracks and dragged to safety, according to the Brooklyn Eagle.

The former World paper wrote of the exploit the following day:

Simultaneously six throttles were thrown open — first gradually, then to their full. The music of the guy ropes and tackle was weird and Wagnerian; then the tug of war began. Panting and puffing, the iron horses strained every fibre of their mechanical muscle. For a moment, and a moment only, they tugged in vain, their immense drive wheels revolved with perceptible swiftness; then, as if with a mighty effort, they forged ahead. Slowly but surely the mammoth structure followed. The puzzling problem as to what was to be the fate of Brighton Beach Hotel had been solved. Shouts of joyous approval and triumph arose from the small army of workmen and spectators which was caught up and echoed by six brazen throats in shrill and prolonged blasts.

A success, the hotel lived on 600 feet from its original location for another three decades, until its demolition in 1923.