A T. Rex Skeleton Arrives in Rockefeller Center Ahead of Auction

The tourists have not yet returned to Rockefeller Center, but the dinosaurs are making a comeback.

Unsuspecting visitors exploring Midtown will encounter the imperious glare of a Tyrannosaurus rex from the windows of Christie’s flagship location on 49th Street, where it will remain on view from Wednesday through Oct. 21. His nickname is Stan, he is approximately 67 million years old with eyes the size of baseballs, and his bones are selling for an estimate of up to $8 million.

“I’ll never forget the moment I came face to face with him for the first time,” in Colorado, said James Hyslop, head of the auction house’s scientific instruments, globes and natural history department. “He looked even larger and more ferocious than I’d imagined.”

According to Mr. Hyslop, the last time such a complete specimen arrived on auction was in 1997, when a T. rex called Sue sold for $8.36 million to the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. The auction house is hoping that Stan will beat that record when he’s presented during its Oct. 6 evening sale of 20th-century art.

The fossil is named after the amateur paleontologist Stan Sacrison, who first discovered the skeleton in 1987 on privately owned land in the Hell Creek Formation in the northwestern United States. The dinosaur’s remains were excavated five years later with the landowner’s consent and taken to the Black Hills Institute in South Dakota for study. Over the last two decades, researchers have theorized that punctures in Stan’s skull and fused neck vertebrae demonstrate that this Tyrannosaur was a warrior, likely surviving attacks from his own species.