Hidden away outside an abandoned building in Hainesport, NJ is a giant troll called Big Rusty.
In the summer and fall of 2023, Danish sculptor Thomas Dambo traveled from the east coast to west coast of the US, building 10 trolls along the way for a series named Way of the Bird King.
His trip started in Hainesport, so on our way back to New Jersey after a quick overnight trip to Baltimore, we stopped off to meet Big Rusty just a few months after her creation.
How To Find Big Rusty
We initially had a hard time finding this troll. She’s clearly labeled on Google Maps, so we used that to get driving directions. However, when we pulled into the side road off Rte 38, we saw numerous signs saying ‘No Trespassing’.
Figuring that there must be another way to get to Big Rusty we drove all around, but there was seemingly no other way to get there. Shae and I therefore returned to that initial side road. As you’re driving west along Rte 38, it’s just after the Diamond Diner and is where there’s a sign for Mark J. Molz Law Office on the right hand side of the road.
After pulling back on to this road, we realized that the ‘No Trespassing’ signs lined the road along the left and right, but that the road itself wasn’t subject to that – only the land and buildings either side of the road. Continuing along, we soon arrived at the parking lot for this Thomas Dambo troll. It was a Saturday afternoon when we visited, with a drone club having fun at the site too.
How To Find Big Rusty
Thomas Dambo built this troll at the former site of Creek Turn Ceramic Supply Co. The building is now abandoned, with graffiti adorning the walls inside.
The building still seemed stable, so we took a little wander inside. Going inside gives you an opportunity to see the troll from different angles.
About Big Rusty
Big Rusty is part of the Way of the Bird King series, each of which have a short rhyme about them. Here’s hers:
For every piece of trash, she eats
she grows so big and thick
So careful not to feed the beast
one day, she might grow sick
Sure enough, there was a sign warning you not to feed her, as well as to warn against climbing on her. Some of Dambo’s trolls can be climbed on to at least some extent, but there are others – like this one – where that can’t be done safely.
To be honest, it doesn’t seem like she needs any assistance getting fed as we found her already munching on wood and wiring.
Thomas Dambo creates his trolls using reclaimed materials and Big Rusty is no exception. Having said that, the way she was created was a little different to normal.
With most of Dambo’s other trolls, they’re created primarily with wood from a common source. In Maine they used wood pallets, while in Kentucky they used bourbon barrels.
With this one in Hainesport, NJ though, they used materials found on site. That included part of a rusty roof, a concrete wall, wood from a plywood attic, electrical equipment and more. Those mixed construction materials are reflected on Big Rusty’s body, making her more colorful than many of his other sculptures, while also highlighting the ‘rusty’ part of her name..
Sitting down, she’s 20 feet tall. If she were to ever rise from her sedentary position, she’d probably be closer to 40 feet tall.
Other Thomas Dambo Trolls
We made sure we stopped in Hainesport as we love Thomas Dambo’s creations. Here’s all the other places we’ve seen them:
Thanks so much for sharing this and for posting the precise directions. That diner is less than 10 minutes from our house! I heard about the Thomas Dambo troll a few months back and have wanted to go there-but I read that the site had been vandalized and that they might be closing it off. Glad that it is not closed. Safe travels south to you guys and Truffles.
Your Spellbound Brewery friends (Beth and John).
Yep, I saw a news report that there had been some kind of vandalism, but it seemed to be in good condition when we visited and so the damage presumably wasn’t too bad. Thanks again for the meetup 🙂
Stephen, I always look forward to you writings to show up in my email. We have been to most all of the states except for up around the Dakota’s. We are trying to decide now whether to make a road trip from Georgia up in that area, or to go up the east coast. We have been in all of the states on the east coast but it has been a while.
We love the unusual sites (such as the trolls you just saw), but have a hard time finding out what is available. We took a trip out to the four corner states out west a couple of years ago. It was great, but after we got home, we learned of things we wish we had seen or done. We are in our late 70’s so hiking is not an easy thing for us, but we love anything we can get close to.
My question to you is “how do you find the fun and different things to do?”
I am saving all of your newsletters to refer to, but would like any kind of advise you can give us.
Keep the emails coming! We gave grown to love you two and Truffles.
Aw, thank you! I love that you’re enjoying our travels so much 🙂
When it comes to finding fun things to do, we have a few methods. We get quite a few suggestions from people and we have a spreadsheet with 51 tabs (50 states + Washington D.C.) where we keep a record of all of them. Then when we’re planning out a state, I create a Google Map and add every suggestion for that state on there so that we can see where all those things are located.
Some activities we’ve seen signs or flyers for when traveling through a place and have stayed overnight on our way through to a different state. We also search only for things to do in each place we stay – not just things like TripAdvisor, but you can often find a blog post from someone local to that city that’ll list fun things to do. We’ll also often search for pet-friendly things to do in whichever city we’re visiting seeing as Truffles likes to get out and about as much as possible too.
If you like quirky things like the trolls, a couple of websites worth checking out are RoadsideAmerica.com and AtlasObscura.com. Both sites feature roadside attractions, random activities and other things off the beaten path that aren’t your run-of-the-mill tourist attractions. Shae is better about checking those sites than I am; I think at least one of them has a feature where you can enter your start and end points and it’ll let you know what roadside attractions there are along your route.
I hope that helps a little! We love the east coast – especially Virginia, New York and Vermont. That said, we were surprised by how much we enjoyed South Dakota when visiting there last year. We’ve not done North Dakota yet – that’ll be September this year.