No Place Like Home: A cultural dinosaur's revival

By JEANNE MALMGREN, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published August 10, 2002

[Times photo: Dirk Shadd] Dino the 20-foot-high concrete dinosaur has stood at 66th Street North in St. Petersburg since the ‘60s.

ST. PETERSBURG -- He has stood there, in the same spot, since LBJ was president.

A 20-foot-high concrete dinosaur leaning on the bone of some unfortunate weaker beast. Weathering tropical storms, lightning, the passing of a comet, a once-in-a-lifetime Florida snowfall. Watching decades roll past.

Originally he guarded the sixth hole of an amusement center called Sir Goony Golf & Go-Karts. His eyes blinked and one arm moved a board up and down over the putting surface.

"You had to time your putt just right, to avoid the board," recalled Tim Brown, who worked at Sir Goony in the early 1980s. Brown and his coworkers nicknamed the beast Dino.

Evolution caught up with Dino a few years later; the course closed and he was left alone. All around him, businesses came and went: doughnut shops, walk-in clinics, supermarkets, pornographic video stores, gas stations.

Dino kept standing there, absorbing exhaust fumes from 66th Street North. A sentinel of simpler times. A cultural dinosaur.

Now he's fenced in by chain-link, and showing his age. The painted flames on his cheeks are fading. One of his blue-spotlight eyes is gone, the other broken. The motor that used to move his right arm rusted long ago, freezing the arm in midair. The concrete tail has a gaping hole in it.

In his open mouth, a bird has built its nest.

Earlier this year, new caretakers took over. Brown is one of them. They opened a go-cart track on the back of the property, named it T-N-T Racing. Their advertising says they're "conveniently located next to the old dinosaur on 66th Street."

They plan to bring Dino back to life. His orange-yellow scales will be painted in psychedelic colors. The tail patched. New eyes, a new motor.

"To flip the switch and see him move again, after all these years," said Brown. "That will be neat."

-- "No Place Like Home" highlights underappreciated people, places, things and experiences in the Tampa Bay area.

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