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# DIY Art Giant Bob Cassilly Died This Week
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/diy-art-giant-bob-cassilly-died-yesterday/
- Published: 2011-09-30T17:21:16.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:19:32.000Z
- Description: We received this note yesterday from a Hyperallergic reader: "Bob Cassilly died … His bulldozer tumbled down a rocky hill, flipping over a bunch of times while he was in it. He was a pretty tough guy. He turned a giant shoe factory in St. Louis into The City Museum. A wonderland of potential lawsuit
- Author: Hrag Vartanian
- Tags: News, #image-position-hidden, St. Louis, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2025-11-17 09:23 (2009-2011)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2011/09/city_museum600.jpg)

A view of the outdoor playground of City Museum (photo via Wikipedia)

We received this note yesterday from a Hyperallergic reader:

> Bob Cassilly died … His bulldozer tumbled down a rocky hill, flipping over a bunch of times while he was in it. He was a pretty tough guy. He turned a giant shoe factory in St. Louis into The City Museum. A wonderland of potential lawsuits and junk. Made, entirely out of trash. 80,000 square feet. Packed. Impossible to explain. A treasure. Today is a sad day for DIY art.

> Those are kids climbing that building … It’s a video of the outside of the building. They don’t even go inside. There are 200 other videos you can watch of the inside. Probably no two alike.

Here’s just a taste of his legacy, courtesy the [*New York Times*](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/30/arts/design/bob-cassilly-playscape-creator-fueled-by-whimsy-dies-at-61.html?ref=hyperallergic.com):

> He created whimsical animal sculptures around the country, including hippopotamuses for children to play on in Riverside Park and Central Park in Manhattan and a giraffe at the Dallas Zoo that is Texas’s tallest sculpture if you count its outstretched tongue. In his native St. Louis he built a children’s paradise of tree houses, caves, slides and odd treasures he found and called it City Museum. It became a leading tourist attraction.

Obituaries and reports of his death have already surfaced online, here are a few:

- “[Bob Cassilly, Playscape Creator Fueled by Whimsy, Dies at 61](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/30/arts/design/bob-cassilly-playscape-creator-fueled-by-whimsy-dies-at-61.html?ref=hyperallergic.com)” (*New York Times*)
- “[City Museum Founder Killed in Bulldozer Accident](http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/article%5F8eb51012-e851-11e0-af8b-0019bb30f31a.html?ref=hyperallergic.com)” (*St. Louis Post-Dispatch*)
- “[Bob Cassilly Died in Bulldozer Accident at ‘Cementland’](http://www.ksdk.com/news/article/278530/3/Bob-Cassilly-killed-in-bulldozer-accident-at-Cementland?ref=hyperallergic.com)” (KSDK)
- “[Remembering Bob Cassilly’s Cementland: A Photo Tribute](http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/dailyrft/2011/09/cementland%5Fbob%5Fcassilly%5Fphotos.php?ref=hyperallergic.com)” (*Riverfront Times*)
- “[Famed Sculptor Bob Cassilly Killed in Construction Accident](http://www.fox2now.com/news/ktvi-bob-cassilly-city-museum-cementland-construction-accident-092611,0,3641124.story?ref=hyperallergic.com)” (FOX2 St. Louis)
- his [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob%5FCassilly?ref=hyperallergic.com) page

And there will be [memorial](http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/article%5F45e93269-6072-5e98-9d6c-9f4f53c46aee.html?ref=hyperallergic.com) for him tomorrow in St. Louis.