The live action fun of dinosaurs will continue to roam Bergen County’s Overpeck Park in Leonia, New Jersey as a nonprofit entity, carrying on as the state’s only family attraction featuring life-sized animatronics of these kid-favorite, long-extinct reptiles that dominated the land for over 140 million years.
An educational, interactive park, Field Station: Dinosaurs, enters new ownership as a nonprofit for its 13th season in 2025 and will open as usual in May. Glen Ridge, New Jersey resident Guy Gsell, original creator and executive producer of the attraction, will stay on for three years as the park transitions.
The change, he said, is intended to ensure the longevity of the park and grow through grants and volunteers. All of the park’s assets are being donated to the newly formed tax-exempt, nonprofit Field Station Education Foundation.
Gsell will be one of the foundation’s new board of directors as it looks to raise $25,000 ahead of the park’s May opening. Funds are needed to help with costs associated with settling up the nonprofit foundation and other expenses, he told northjersey.com last month.
Field Station: Dinosaurs moved to Leonia in 2016 from Secaucus in 2012 and became an official education partner with Bergen County in 2021; its lease with Bergen County expires at the end of this year. A new contract with the new nonprofit is reportedly in the works. The attraction has a second location in Wichita, Kansas.
Gsell’s fascination with dinosaurs started with the Sinclair Oil dinosaurs at the 1964-65 World’s Fair, he told nj.com in 2016. At that time, he was packing up the dinosaur park in Laurel Park in Secaucus for Overpeck Park in Leonia, after inking a deal with the Bergen County Improvement Authority.
The move from Secaucus, a 16-acre portion of Laurel Hill near exit 15X of the New Jersey Turnpike, was due to the construction of a new high school. Overpeck Park spans 800+ acres over Leonia, Teaneck, Palisades Park and Ridgefield Park.
The park is open May through November. Find out more here.
Gsell is a producer and songwriter who was the former director at Discovery Times Square Exposition, former production stage manager of Shakespeare Theatre Company of New Jersey, and former Managing Director at Two River Theater, among other artistic and creative roles across new jersey and New York City.
