{"id":85931,"date":"2023-09-26T17:10:44","date_gmt":"2023-09-26T17:10:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebritytidings.com\/?p=85931"},"modified":"2023-09-26T17:10:44","modified_gmt":"2023-09-26T17:10:44","slug":"i-spent-2-years-living-in-a-football-stadium-after-i-built-a-secret-flat-it-was-fully-furnished-with-astroturf-carpet-the-sun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebritytidings.com\/sport\/i-spent-2-years-living-in-a-football-stadium-after-i-built-a-secret-flat-it-was-fully-furnished-with-astroturf-carpet-the-sun\/","title":{"rendered":"I spent 2 years living in a football stadium after I built a secret flat\u2026 it was fully furnished with AstroTurf carpet | The Sun"},"content":{"rendered":"

A VETERAN built himself a secret apartment inside his favourite sports stadium – and even decked it out with AstroTurf carpet.<\/p>\n

US veteran and author, Tom Garvey, published a tell-all book in which he sensationally revealed how he turned an unused concession stand into his home at the former Veterans Stadium.<\/p>\n


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The publication, titled \u201cThe Secret Apartment: Vet Stadium, A Surreal Memoir", details Tom's life events between 1979 and 1981.<\/p>\n

Along with the Philadelphia Phillies baseball team and the Philadelphia Eagles football team, Tom called "The Vet" his home.<\/p>\n

The 65,000-capacity venue in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was eventually demolished by implosion in March 2004 but it will always hold special memories for Tom.<\/p>\n

The fascinating sequence of events across those two years of Tom's residence began when he started working at the stadium as a parking lot supervisor.<\/p>\n

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He built his secret stadium lair after getting a job from uncles, the Nilon Brothers, who ran the stadium\u2019s concession stands.<\/p>\n

But when he was given the job he was also handed a mysterious bunch of keys.<\/p>\n

They allowed him to come across the empty container, where he began spending nights, before converting it into a fully furnished apartment.<\/p>\n

Tom recalls it was about 60 feet long by 30 feet wide with a sloped roof.<\/p>\n

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<\/span><\/p>\n

It became equipped with a bed, sink, refrigerator, coffee maker, stereo and more, while it was carpeted with leftover AstroTurf from the field.<\/p>\n

The empty concession stand was located out by left field, in a low-traffic area by gate D on the 200 level.<\/p>\n

To keep it out of view, Tom arranged the space so that if someone opened the door, all they would see was a wall of cardboard boxes.<\/p>\n

At one end of the boxes was a corridor which opened up into the secret apartment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tom claims that he got away with his sneaky antics because he was \u201cnon-threatening and affable\u201d.<\/p>\n

But the frequency at which he worked meant he was able to \u201chide in plain sight\u201d because no one questioned why he was still at work.<\/p>\n

And with his job requiring him to spend a great deal of time on site, few noticed that he never went to an off-site home.<\/p>\n

However, Tom never took photos of the apartment and was very selective with whom he allowed to visit for fear of getting caught.<\/p>\n

But a select few rare visitors were able to confirm that the secret apartment did indeed exist.<\/p>\n

This included his cousin, Ridley Park resident Terry Nilon, Philadelphia Eagles Hall of Famer Bill Bradley, and former Electric Factory General Manager Michael McNally.<\/p>\n

One former Philadelphia Eagles player, Bill Bradley, told the Philadelphia Inquirer that once Garvey got his hideaway set up, it was \u201cfantastic.\u201d<\/p>\n

He recalled: \u201cYou go in there and you think it\u2019s just a root beer stand with a bunch of stocked-up boxes and then it opened up into a better apartment than I had in Center City.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his book, Tom even boasts hosting the wives of Eagles players after games so they didn\u2019t have to wait in the parking lot for their husbands.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019d put music on the stereo and have a drink,\u201d he said, as quoted by the Daily Local.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe husbands would join their wives and have a beer, and then the [spectator] traffic would pull out and we\u2019d get their cars and have dinner.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps one of Tom's most stand-out recollections was roller skating around the concourse at night when he was by himself, which he says was almost "like meditation".<\/p>\n

However, he left the apartment behind when his uncles lost the parking lot franchise in 1981.<\/p>\n

He would go on to meet his current wife Margaret, whom he married in 1992, and enjoy a successful career in real estate.<\/p>\n

Tom and Margaret currently reside in Ambler and he has five stepchildren, two grandchildren, and a dog, Mozie.<\/p>\n

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Elsewhere, one man spent 20 years off the grid after building a private island out of rubbish.<\/p>\n

And on a slightly smaller scale, one woman has opted to live in a tent with her five home schooled children to save for their future wealth.<\/p>\n


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\nSource: Read Full Article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A VETERAN built himself a secret apartment inside his favourite sports stadium – and even decked it out with AstroTurf carpet. US veteran and author, Tom Garvey, published a tell-all book in which he sensationally revealed how he turned an unused concession stand into his home at the former Veterans Stadium. The publication, titled \u201cThe Secret Apartment: Vet Stadium, A<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":85930,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nI spent 2 years living in a football stadium after I built a secret flat\u2026 it was fully furnished with AstroTurf carpet | The Sun - Celebrity Tidings<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/celebritytidings.com\/sport\/i-spent-2-years-living-in-a-football-stadium-after-i-built-a-secret-flat-it-was-fully-furnished-with-astroturf-carpet-the-sun\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"I spent 2 years living in a football stadium after I built a secret flat\u2026 it was fully furnished with AstroTurf carpet | The Sun - Celebrity Tidings\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A VETERAN built himself a secret apartment inside his favourite sports stadium – and even decked it out with AstroTurf carpet. 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