Veterans Stadium was the former home to the Philadelphia Phillies and Eagles, and also to Vietnam veteran Tom Garvey.
The 78-year-old recently published a book, “The Secret Apartment: Vet Stadium, a surreal memoir,” in which he recalls his time living in an empty concession stand inside The Vet from 1979-81.
Garvey has no proof that he lived there, but told his story to the Philadelphia Inquirer, which was able to corroborate his claims with three other individuals who said they visited his secret apartment, including Eagles Hall of Famer Bill Bradley.
Related
“You go in there and you think it’s just a root beer stand with a bunch of stocked-up boxes,” Bradley said. “And then it opened up into a better apartment than I had in Center City.”
Garvey’s uncles, the Nilon Brothers, had a contract to run the concession and novelty stands at the Vet and were also contracted to run the parking lots from 1977-81.
Garvey was working as a cashier supervisor for the stadium complex parking lots while his cousin, Terry Nilon, supervised the lots. When Terry left to open a sports memorabilia store in New Jersey, Garvey replaced him as supervisor.
Related
This allowed him to receive a set of keys to his own office inside the stadium as well as an obscure entrance to the stadium.
In 1979, Garvey had a crew sleep in his office prior to Pope John Paul’s visit so they can open the lots at 4 a.m.
Former Electric Factory general manager Michael McNally was there and joked to Garvey if he could imagine staying at the Vet all the time?
“Once he said that, I couldn’t wait till we got the people in the lot and I could get back there and start working on it,” Garvey told the Inquirer. “I was driven.”
Garvey found a concession stand in a low-traffic area on the 200 level in left field where he began constructing his apartment.
He set up a wall of cardboard boxes so that if someone opened the door, that would be all they see, but behind those boxes included a bed, sink, fridge, stereo, coffee maker, hot plate and seating with leftover AstroTurf used as carpeting.
“I was like a kid with a Willy Wonka golden ticket,” he said.
Garvey threw halftime parties during Eagles games, which was short-lived because strangers started showing up. He hosted wives of Eagles players after the games where they would wait for their husbands, who would meet them and have a beer while waiting for the lot traffic to clear out.
Garvey’s stories also consist of roller-skating around the concourse and waking up in the middle of the night to the end of a rain-delayed doubleheader where he watched the remainder of a Phillies game in his bathrobe, flip flops and cup of coffee.
“[The fans] didn’t want to know why I was there in a bathrobe and flip flops,” he said. “They just wanted to know where I got a hot cup of coffee because the concession stands closed hours ago.”
Garvey’s life at the Vet came to an end in 1981 when his uncle’s contract expired and he left his job.
“I’d been so busy for so many years when I came home and this gave me the opportunity to put things in perspective,” he said of his time living at the Vet. “I found it to be healing. It was a place where I went inside myself and found some peace.”
LISTEN NOW on the RADIO.COM App
Follow RADIO.COM Sports
Twitter | Facebook I Instagram