Brighton Beach Hotel, 1901.

William A. Engelman was a businessman and developer who named the area now known as Brighton Beach in 1869 after a British seaside town. Over the last few decades of the 19th century, Engelman was developer of the beach resort community after purchasing several hundred acres of beachfront property. He developed and constructed the Brighton Beach Bathing Pavilion and Ocean Pier in 1871, which accommodated 1,2000 visitors for ocean bathing, walking along the water, and dining at the high end restaurants within the hotel.

After Austin Corbin, competitor opened the nearby and larger Manhattan Beach Hotel on his own newly acquired chuck of land, Engleman upped the ante and with a group of investors built the Hotel Bright. It was a multi-story wood-framed hotel, with deep porches, towers, and manicured lawns, overlooking the boardwalk and the ocean. The hotel could accommodate more than 5000 people.