All Photos By Gail

This past 4th of July, while most folks were grilling in the park or flocking to the beach, I found myself face-to-face with a dinosaur in Midtown Manhattan. Not just any dinosaur—a Titanosaurus, towering over Rockefeller Center like it owned the place. It was a surreal, cinematic moment made even better by the rarest of gifts: a sunny, warm, non-humid summer day in NYC -a real unicorn, weather-wise.

The towering beast — a promotional installation for Jurassic World: Rebirth — appeared at Rock Center’s North Plaza on June 24th, just ahead of the film’s release on July 2nd. Measuring roughly five stories tall and stretching the length of a city bus, this plant-eating colossus turned heads and stopped tourists in their tracks. Cameras clicked. Children gasped. Gawkers refused to get out of my shots. It was glorious.

Naturally, I had to capture the event to share here, basking in the sheer absurdity and majesty of it all. It’s not every day you stumble across a dinosaur while on the way to MoMA, just a few blocks uptown.

The installation stuck around through July 5th, and though there was no official word on where it went next, by the 6th it had vanished like a prehistoric mirage. No traveling exhibit. No goodbye parade. They aren’t very sentimental in midtown.

But wait — is Titanosaurus even a real dinosaur?

Well, sort of. The name comes from a long-necked, tail-swinging sauropod described in 1877 from fossils found in India. But modern paleontologists consider Titanosaurus a “nomen dubium,” meaning the original bones aren’t distinct enough to confirm as a unique species. Basically, it’s a placeholder name that’s mostly fallen out of scientific favor — though it still sounds cool enough for Hollywood. While this dino encounter wasn’t scientifically accurate, it fabulous and photogenic, and  I was lucky enough to see it in the sun.