Public art: Dinosaurs!

When we talk about public art around Boston, too often we leave out two of the region’s most awesome (and popular) public sculptures: the dinosaurs!

This tyrannosaurus rex model pictured above (and at bottom) stands outside Boston’s Museum of Science. It was sculpted in the 1960s, when only five (incomplete) T-rex skeletons had been discovered. More recent archeological discoveries have prompted scientists to rethink what T-rexes were like, leading to a revised model inside the museum which stalks in a nearly horizontal posture and has skin pattered like tiger stripes. But this old lumbering galoot, now put out to pasture, warms my heart.

And note its resemblance to the other great dino sculpture around here: the famous 20-foot-tall Orange Dinosaur (pictured at left) at Route 1 Miniature Golf in Saugus, a regional landmark looming over the highway (and hole number six). First erected on the site around 1960, it was felled by vandals last year, but has since been restored to its glory.

While we’re talking about dinosaur sculptures, don’t forget The Dinosaur Place in Montville, Connecticut, a theme park featuring a 14-foot concrete-and-steel tyrannosaurus rex, a 40-foot tall and 75-foot long brachiosaurus, a ceratosaurus threatening a stegosaurus, and a group of velociraptors stalking a protoceratops. The park is offering the “12 Dinosaurs of Christmas” tour from Nov. 28 to Dec. 31.