Why 20 dinosaurs showed up on top of two Center City high-rises

Elizabeth Dobbins was at a friend’s apartment in Center City recently when she looked out of the window and saw “life-size” dinosaurs on the roof of the north Riverwalk apartment tower along the banks of the Schuylkill.

Among the prehistoric beasts roaming the urban rooftop were an allosaurus, a brontosaurus, and a triceratops.

“To be honest, my first reaction was ‘Oh, this would make a good story!’” she said via email.

Dobbins used to work as a journalist and her “lizard brain” still looks for good stories, “especially about big lizards, I guess,” she said.

“Mostly, though, I was just really curious. Was this someone’s eccentric collection? Guerilla marketing for the zoo installation? A temporary home for cast-off dinos?” Dobbins asked.

Having read my recent column on the guerilla art “Boob Garden” that popped up in a vacant lot in South Philly, Dobbins emailed me photos of the dinosaurs to see what I could dig up.

Turns out, she’s not the only one who had questions. Another reader who’d spotted the dinosaurs atop the high-rise apartments at 23rd and Arch Streets reached out to ask about them through The Inquirer’s Curious Philly platform, where readers can submit questions to be answered by our journalists.

Even residents of the Riverwalk apartments, who’d seen the dinosaurs hoisted onto their multiuse rooftop via crane on June 6, had no idea why they were there.

One resident, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said no information about the dinosaurs was distributed to residents by PMC Property Group, the company that manages the apartments. One day they just woke up and found themselves living with dinosaurs, as if they’d become unwitting participants in some new Jurassic Park franchise.

Louise Giordano, senior vice president of PMC Property Group, seemed surprised when I called to ask about the dinosaurs, and even more surprised I considered them worthy of a story, as if dinosaurs appearing on rooftops is something that happens every day here in Philly.

In her defense, between the smoke from Canadian wildfires blanketing the city and the collapse and rebuild of I-95, it’s been a weird few weeks. Dinosaurs beginning their repopulation of the earth atop a luxury Philly high-rise doesn’t seem totally out of the realm of possibility.

Alas, the explanation is a little more pedestrian than that.

Giordano said PMC purchased 20 dinosaurs, ranging from 5 to 20 feet in length, and spread them out between the two roofs of Riverwalk’s north and south towers, simply for the enjoyment of residents. She said PMC tries to do something fun at each of its buildings for its tenants. The dinosaurs are for “viewing pleasure only,” she said.

“We wanted to spice it up a bit and make it a little more exciting, so in came the dinosaurs,” Giordano said. “So when the tenants go out and see that, it will make them chuckle a bit, or smile, or at the very least, give them something to talk about.”

The resident I spoke to said initial opinions were mixed. Some tenants were upset because the green area where the dinosaurs were placed, which features a grasslike substance (”It’s not grass, but it is a living organism,” they said), was supposed to be a picnic area but has remained cordoned off to residents.

“The frustration stemmed from the fact that they advertised it when touring, then said ‘No you’re not allowed,’ then 18ish-months later put up dinosaurs,” the resident said. “However, I think most people now find it funny and the kids that live here [and] visit are infatuated by them.”

The next thing I had to know was where does one buy 20 very large dinosaur statues? According to Giordano, PMC bought them from Best of France Antiques in Doylestown.

When I Googled the store, I was amazed I’d never heard of it. This place has everything! A German travel kit to hunt vampires, a minotaur statue that leaves little to the imagination, and a surprisingly large amount of massive dinosaur sculptures.

Ed Crimi, who’s owned the shop for more than 30 years, described it as a “very large complex with just a lot of fun things going on.” He said he sells everything from 300-year-old antiques to “very unusual esoteric items” from around the world.

Shortly before 2020, Crimi said he purchased 100 fiberglass dinosaurs from an overseas collection and placed them around his store’s garden and playground, where kids love interacting with them.

Up until PMC made its big purchase, the typical buyers of the dinosaurs (which range in price from $1,200 for the smaller ones to $10,000 for the larger) were grandparents who bought them to keep in their backyards for when their grandchildren came over, Crimi said.

(You know what my grandma had for me when I visited? A tire swing and dishes to wash.)

Crimi said he’s got about 30 dinosaurs left, 20 of which will permanently remain on the grounds, and 10 of which are still for sale.

He said he thought PMC buying his dinosaurs for its Center City roofs was a fun and unusual idea.

“I think we need more things like this,” Crimi said. “It brings people joy. It’s happiness.”

Dobbins, who was as grateful to me for the answers I dug up as I was to her for sending me the question, agreed.

“The dinos seemed like another instance of the playful surprises that make Philadelphia a fun place to live,” she said.