The Kensington Hotel and Baths, c. 1900

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Places

Built in 1895, the hotel was originally on the Coney Island shoreline which at the time was several hundred feet further inland than it is today. The Kensington survived both the disastrous 1903 Bowery fire and the 1907 fire that consumed nearby Steeplechase Park and buildings on side of the hotel. When the Boardwalk was built and beach extended in 1923, the Kensington was hidden away by new buildings lining the Boardwalk. In 1925, George Moran decided to errect the Thunderbolt roller coaster on the property. Rather than demolish the old hotel, he ran the steel supports for the coaster right through the building and transformed it into his home. "You don't tear down buildings in Coney Island if you can help it," Moran said at the time. Moran and his companion, Mae Timpano, lived in the converted hotel until the 1980s.