History & local legend
In March 1981, a report of a small creature drew people with flashlights to a sewer opening near Constitution Boulevard and North Street, at the Arnold–New Kensington boundary. Thirteen-year-old Bill Menhart told reporter Michael Burke that he and three other boys had seen it the preceding Saturday night.
Menhart compared it to a little dinosaur, roughly two feet long with a large tail. One boy reportedly told police he had grabbed it from behind, prompting a squeal before it escaped.
Investigator Bob Goerman tried leaving apple slices near the opening. He could account for what happened to those: rats and rabbits ate them. Burke’s March 5 newspaper report preserved the boys’ descriptions, the police response and the gathering crowd, as an unusual sighting became a neighborhood attraction.
