Cory Booker presented a $500K check for Lucy the Elephant. It means nothing now.

It was August in Margate, and Richard D. Helfant, the executive director of the Save Lucy Committee nonprofit, was “beyond thrilled.”

Sen. Cory Booker presented an oversized check for $500,000 to the caretakers of the historic roadside attraction that some would describe as the Jersey Shore’s equivalent of Paris’ Eiffel Tower.

The ceremonial check had Booker’s name on the upper left corner and “U.S. Treasury” sprawled on the lower right. The half a million dollars made out to Lucy the Elephant were meant for internal repairs in the six-story elephant-shaped building, including a fire suppression system and new security alarms.

That thrill is now over because the celebrated funding will not come through after it was excluded from the federal budget for the rest of the fiscal year.

“When you get a promise from a United States senator that the federal government is giving you money, I mean, I would assume that would be as good as you know, money in your hand, because it’s the United States government,” Helfant said Saturday. “But I guess that’s not the case anymore.”

Booker secured the $500,000 congressional discretionary spending last year after initially asking the Senate Appropriations Committee for $1 million. But the grant money was slashed before it reached Lucy along with all of the grants of its sort in the Republican-led continuing resolution to fund the government through the end of the fiscal year, according to a March 18 letter to Helfant from Booker’s deputy state director, Kaitlin McGuinness. One of those grants was for an organization that provides services for survivors of domestic violence, according to Booker’s office.

“When you have a promise from the federal government, and that promise means nothing, that’s a pretty sad state of affairs,” Helfant said.

Lucy, first born as the “Elephant Bazaar” roadside attraction on July 20, 1881, and renamed in 1902, is a National Historic Landmark. The attraction offers paid 20-minute tours featuring the history of the landmark and an opportunity to look out the elephant’s eyes.

In a statement, Booker blamed Congressional Republicans (“including New Jersey’s own”) for drafting and passing a budget that cut funding for Lucy, which he called “a one-of-a-kind cultural and historic site” that is beloved “throughout the entire region.”

» READ MORE: Lucy the Elephant slated to undergo $500K interior makeover

“Nevertheless, I will continue looking for ways to ensure that Lucy the Elephant and its staff have the resources they need to nurture and care for this special landmark,” Booker said.

U.S. Rep. Jeff Van Drew, a Republican whose district includes Lucy’s roadside home, did not respond to a request for comment on Saturday.

Jesse Kurtz, a Republican Council member in nearby Atlantic City, said he has faith in Helfant’s ability to move the project forward.

“Rich Helfant has done an amazing job raising money and preserving Lucy,” Kurtz said. “This is a big setback, but if anyone can keep the ship moving, it is Helfant.”

The upkeep of Lucy is funded both with public and private dollars, with financial assistance from the city and state on other efforts. A $2.4 million exterior renovation in late 2022 incorporated a $500,000 grant from the National Park Service along with state and private funding, Helfant said.

Helfant said that the long-planned interior renovation work goes hand-in-hand with a separately funded project to build a new gift shop for Lucy because the air-conditioning equipment for Lucy’s interior is supposed to go on the roof of the future shop.

“The bottom line is, work is going to move forward because it has to,” Helfant said.

He just has to figure out how to pay for it.

Organization leaders have already met with their grant writer, the Margate mayor, board members, “and other possible sources of funding to try to figure out what we can do to recover from this,” Helfant said.

“We don’t have a definitive plan yet, because it’s all very new, but we’re working on it,” he added.

Staff writer Robert Moran contributed to this article.