Lucy the Elephant was (carefully) relocated on this week in Philly history

Well, Lucy certainly moved like an elephant.

For 90 years, the iconic roadside attraction stood tall at Cedar Grove Avenue and the sand in Margate.

But as developers got their hands on the land beneath her 90-ton feet, community members raised hell and money to ensure her preservation and relocation.

It took seven hours on July 20, 1970, to move Lucy’s 65-foot frame to her new stomping ground — only two blocks away.

All this for a run-down and outdated advertising stunt?

Lucy is a survivor.

She was the oldest and largest of three seaside animal-shaped structures built in the 1880s.

Lucy was the creation of Philadelphia native James V. Lafferty, a budding real estate speculator and creative problem-solver, who wanted to market large swaths of grassy-duned land in South Atlantic City.

» READ MORE: Play our quiz: Where on the Jersey Shore were these photos taken?

He repeated the strategy on Coney Island, but that elephant burned down in 1896. Another Philadelphia developer, Theodore Reger, was inspired to build his own elephant to help sell plots in South Cape May. It was torn down in 1900, leaving Lucy as the last pachyderm standing.

These structures were dubbed “follies” for their novelty architecture, including spiral staircases in each of Lucy’s hind legs that led to an 18-by-18-foot reception room, with additional rooms branching off. Over the years she would serve as a hotel and a tavern and as her outer shell fell into disrepair, an unattractive tourist trap.

She was earmarked for demolition until supporters raised the money to move her to city-donated beachfront property at Decatur and Atlantic Avenues. Through the power of collective action, Lucy would join the ranks of protected national landmarks, her survival and revival a testament to the resilience and pride of the community that built up around her.

Her tin skin and timber bones providing a reliable canvas and a consistent identity — and a link to the past. A six-story keeper of precious summer memories.

She is the mother of Margate.

It wasn’t quite the same as the Greeks contriving to get a wooden horse past the walls of Troy. But rarely has an animal-shaped structure been so moved.

A group of South Jersey house movers, who found the whole ordeal strange, jacked Lucy up on dollies, fastened her to steel beams, and braced her with wood columns.

She creaked and groaned as a yellow flatbed truck pulled the old girl through town. Thousands crowded Atlantic Avenue to cheer on Lucy’s unusual journey. Electric, telephone, and cable technicians dropped power lines to let her through.

And when she arrived, the movers set her trunk to face the ocean, where she would live on as an entire town’s historical souvenir.

She was — and still is — an irresistible force disguised as an immovable object.