The New York and Sea Beach Company was chartered on September 25th 1876 with a capital of $100,000. The promoters were all prominent New York businessmen, and the first president was James Smith who was also president of the Manhattan Gas company. Most of the other principals were prominent cotton brokers. Only one Brooklynite, William Beard, was representative on the Board of Directors, and it was his firm, Beard and Hamilton, which had the contract to build the line. The Company was a closed corporation and issued no bonds nore floating debt and worked on a cash basis.

In the spring of 1877, W A Vauss, a builder from Flatbush, visited Philadelphia to estimate the cost of removing the building, transporting it to Coney Island by barge and reerecting it. His estimate was $15,000, but he was underbid by Sterling and Binder, a Philadelphia firm, who, it was thought, was taking a risk of losing money on the contract since the building occupied two acres. Sterling and Binder took the building down at the Centennial grounds and shipped it in sections via barge to Coney Island and reerected it on the terminal grounds.

The Interior of the former US Government Building (later Sea Beach Palace Hotel) Image courtesy of Larson collection, Special Collections Library, California State University, Fresno.

The building was in the form of the letter E. The main building was 375 feet across the front and 60 feet in depth. In the centre was a skylight 75 feet high and 60 feet in diameter. There were two wings, one on each end, 260 feet by 60 feet. The east wing was to house a bar and billiard room. The main building was to contain a hotel, a dining room with a capacity of 3000, and a kitchen 100 feet by 60 feet.

Two boardwalks, 600 feet long, extended from the hotel to the beach, and in front of the hotel there was to be a 45 foot wide balcony, along with 25 foot balconies on the sides of the building. The entire complex came to be called the Sea Beach Palace, and it was an outstanding landmark of the Coney Island scene for many years.

In 1884, the season started early with the hotel in new hands opening on April 11th. The Sea Beach Palace promised to provide grander entertainment as Koster and Bial, the noted New York theatrical producers, took over the lease for two years with an option to renew. They would provide concerts similar to the ones they were famous for in New York every afternoon and evening. In addition, many New York society groups booked the ballroom facilities and planned balls for every Thursday and Saturday afternoon. The railroad contracted to provide firework displays twice weekly.

The huge expanse of the Sea Beach Palace is shown in the foreground with its umistakable lantern skylight. Just to the rear left of the hotel, can be seen the entrance to Captain Paul Boynton's Sea Lion Park of 1895. In 1896 the Elephant Hotel burned to the ground. The illustration below is taken from the 'chute the chutes' ride inside the Sea Lion Park showing the rear of the Sea Beach Palace.

Work to improve the hotel was ongoing and in 1880 a military band was engaged to entertain the patrons. The Sea Beach Railway company continued to make improvements between 1880 and 1881, these included a proposal to run a track directly to the Iron Pier and electric lighting for the Sea Beach Palace. For the 1881 season, Henry Tissington's orchestra was hired to provide the musical entertainment. *1

A seaward view of Sea Lion Park from Munsey's magazine, in which the rear of the Sea Beach Palace can be seen on the left. The 'chute the chutes' ride in the foreground was kept when the property was sold and redeveloped as part of Luna Park. The 360 degree flipflap rollercoaster ride is on the right, and behind is the now flat site where the elephantine colossus once stood.

The purchase, relocation and construction of the Sea Beach Palace was, by necessity, tied in with the founding of it's accommodating railway line which provided the custom and increased the popularity of the central and eastern areas of the resort. The same syndicate of Investors that bought the building also purchased railway stock from Philadelphia (the West End Railway) and there's more about the railway lines to the island and hotels later on.

The somewhat gratuitous advertising indicated that it could accommodate 10,000 guests overnight and serve 15,000 diners at one sitting.

"The Hotel was right on the ocean, and the open windows of the room let through a cross breeze that carried the sharp scent of salt air and the faint odor of decomposing sea creatures. ... [It] was in the border between the respectable and the disreputable sections of Coney Island".

In addition to the Sea Beach Palace, three new massive hotels were erected all along the coast toward the east of Coney Island. Andrew Culver, Austin Corbin and William Engemann brought in their own railway lines to monopolise on the resort's boom in the 1870s.

Leaving aside the rougher 'wild west' of the island, and to cater to an upper middle class patronage three prestigious grand hotels were opened to the east; the Brighton Beach in 1878, Manhattan Beach, and in 1880, the four-story Oriental.

 

John Y McKane. Part of a corrupt political scene, he served as Gravesend Town Supervisor from 1879 to 1894 and practically 'ran' Coney Island.

John Y McKane, a local businessman with a certain notoriety had a major hand in the rebuilding and alterations involved in the reconstruction of the Sea Beach Palace hotel, after it's move by barge from Philadelphia in 1877.

McKane's activities seem to reflect the general political climate of the time. The sheer gaul with which he operated engendered popularity in many quarters. In the 1860s in Manhattan, Tammany Hall, as it would soon be called, was a political club. Most of its members were Irish-American workingmen and craftsmen closed out of the city's more exclusive clubs. Slowly, Tammany men took over the local Democratic Party and turned their club into a political "machine." If people voted for, or gave money to Tammany politicians, they were rewarded with jobs, city services, and building contracts with the city.

The organization had always been a bit corrupt -- taking bribes, giving city contracts to members, and stealing funds from the city treasury -- but during and after the Civil War, Tammany's corruption would reach new heights. (The name is still used today to indicate political corruption.)

McKane on his way to Brooklyn's City Hall and a six year sentence in SingSing. Reformers finally caught up with the gang.

In Manhattan in 1871 William "Boss" Tweed was a local politician and head of a consortium engaged to build the city's new courthouse. Contractors had put in a bill for more than the cost of Alaska four years earlier! When the law finally caught up with Tweed in 1876, he was arrested in Spain after a dramatic jailbreak and escape via Coney Island under the auspices of another dubious character, Mike Norton.

Coney Island had it's own "Boss" and in 1868 ambitious John Y McKane found a job as Constable of Gravesend. In the following year he was elected a commissioner of the borough with the power to lease public lands. He ensured his own political domination when he made the town a high return, controlling the tenancies, leases and thereby rental income in the increasingly popular resort. By 1873 his grip on the western part of Coney Island was all but total, having increased income tenfold. By 1881 McKane had his own police force; a group of thugs who effectively helped to ensure the continuation of graft and corruption right up until 1894 when McKane was finally sent to Sing Sing for six years.

During this period along with McKane's domination, many successful New York entrepreneurs and businessmen seeing the opportunities in Coney Island as a profitable resort (some, by necessity, in cahoots with McKane as commissioner) invested well; into racetracks, hotels and restaurants, theatres and the world's first amusement rides.

Following changes and takeovers in the railway companies in 1907, the Sea Beach Palace ceased to be a railroad terminal but survived for some years. In the hands of the showmen; brothers Akoun-Gaston and Ferdinand, the fair in the premises had some success. They ran a prize fight arena and a skating rink as advertised in the trade card.

 

*1 The Sea Beach to Coney Island by William W Fausser