Lucy the Margate Elephant has expensive taste. In 2022, this National Register landmark reopened after a $2.5 million exterior renovation.
Now, her caretakers have turned their attention to an interior fix-up, which is estimated to cost six figures.
Last year, Senator Cory Booker found $500,000 in discretionary funds to get Lucy into tip-top shape. The government grant is part of the National Park Service’s Save Our National Treasures program. But days ago, the nonprofit caretaker of Lucy got bad news – they were the latest to fall in the crosshairs of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
“All of us at Lucy – including Senator Cory Booker – are stunned by the sudden breach of contract,” Richard Helfant, executive director of the Save Lucy Committee, wrote in a letter posted to Facebook last week.
Musk sees himself as an “anti-bureaucracy” superhero who is bent on exposing “grifters,” he recently said on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast. Musk originally set a goal of cutting $1 trillion worth of fat from the federal government. However, he shifted the target to $150 billion a few days ago.
DOGE’s website tracks the cuts, and some of them certainly sound ridiculous without context. The $229,000 reserved for marketing shea butter in Burkina Faso and $10 million for gender equity in the Mexican workplace almost sound like satire.
“Every time you hear an example of something that sounds crazy or odd, there are a whole bunch of different examples of things that are getting caught in the crossfire – things that people want,” said Matthew Hale, political science professor at Seton Hall. “People might agree that there are many places to cut in government, but the issue is that there isn’t any plan.”
Darren Tobia/Jersey Digs.
Without a clear plan, Hale believes there is seemingly no “rhyme or reason” to the cuts. “We ought to be doing this with a scalpel rather than with a nuclear bomb,” he added.
Hale said the legality of what Musk is doing is unclear, and it’s for the courts to determine.
“The money is coming from an executive branch office, even though it is allocated from Congress,” Hale said. “According to Trump, he has the discretion to say yes or no to those funds.”
Helfant told Jersey Digs he plans to reapply next year for the funds, but he said there’s no guarantee the money will be allocated. He also anticipates that because of DOGE’s slashing line items, there will be a greater pool of applicants when next year rolls around.
“We can’t not make these repairs,” Helfant said. “We’ll have to find these funds elsewhere.”
Although Musk has been dead set on exposing government waste, it’s unclear why he’s targeting a tourist attraction that brings about 40,000 visitors to Margate each year.
“She had a much broader reach than just South Jersey,” Helfant said. “People across the world love Lucy.”
Built in 1881, Lucy the Margate Elephant began as a gimmick. A real estate prospector made this unusual roadside attraction to bring attention to his business selling property in what was then South Atlantic City.
The proposed renovations to Lucy would have included updating the rusty fire alarm system, the 50-year-old heating and air-conditioning system, refinishing water-damaged plaster walls, and putting in new pine floors. “With the amount of traffic, the floors get beat up because of the sand on people’s shoes,” Helfant said. “She’s being held together with bubble gum and tape.
