If you are interested in seeing this attraction close up, click below for detailed instructions back to its location! Here, you can park on the side of the road or in the shop's parking lot on St. Paul St.

Directions to the Site!

Located on the corner of St. Paul Street West and Vansickle Road in St. Catharines, this giant statue is incredibly well-known among locals. It is about 13 feet tall and weighs about 1,200 pounds, and is made entirely of scrap car bumpers and other car parts. It was originally created by a sculptor named Jack Kearny in Massachusetts in 1973, and was bought and taken to Canada by Niagara resident Ron Catena. Gerry made his first stop at the Prince of Wales Hotel in Niagara on the Lake, as Catena owned the hotel at the time, but he did not stay there for very long.

Soon after arriving in Niagara, Gerry was moved to the Cat's Caboose restaurant on Glenridge Avenue in St. Catharines. He stayed there for several years until the owner decided that he needed to move Gerry in order to make room for more tables inside the eatery. Catena hired George Hudson, the owner of Hudson Welding, to take Gerry apart and move him from the restaurant. The giraffe stayed in pieces in the attic of Hudson Welding for a few years, then Hudson set him up as a lawn ornament in the mid 1980s. In 1987, Catena told Hudson that he was opening a new restaurant in Virgil called Silks, and they moved Gerry there.

Town officials were quite upset with Gerry's new location, and only a year later, he had to be moved once again to another one of Catena's restaurants - Chico's Bar on Hartzel Road in St. Catharines. However, residents did not like Gerry here either. Less than a year after he arrived at Chico's Bar, Gerry was purposely and repeatedly run over by a customer. Hudson once again took Gerry in and repaired him, but Catena did not want to take Gerry back and the giraffe was unofficially sold to Hudson. Despite more complaints from locals, he has sat on the roof of Hudson Welding ever since and has become an icon of western St. Catharines.

The property of Hudson's Welding also holds two more interesting statues. There is a giant anchor, and a large hanging iron crucible. The stories behind these two structures are unknown, but they are very neat to look at when visiting Gerry.

It can also be very interesting to visit this site at night as well as the day! Everything is well-lit, and there are spotlights focussed on Gerry and the other statues on the property. Sometimes on winter nights, Gerry can be seen with a red light on his nose, just like Rudolph the Red-NosedReindeer.

Hudson Welding is a welding, fabricating, and engineering company founded by George Hudson in 1973. It closed in 2020 when Hudson retired, but the building still has the original Hudson Welding signs, and is being rented out to other fabricating businesses. Visit their Facebook page here!

Floyd, Alicia. "Ask Alicia – Giraffe Jargon." Ask Alicia Museum Chat, 10 May 2016, https://stcatharinesmuseumblog.com/2016/04/22/ask-alicia-giraffe-jargon/.

St. Catharines Standard. "The Long Journey from Eyesore to St. Catharines Landmark." Stcatharinesstandard.com, 4 Oct. 2013, www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/opinion/columnists/2013/10/04/the-long-journey-from-eyesore-to-st-catharines-landmark.html.