Giants Fan Builds Replica Giants Stadium

NEWARK, N.J., (UPI) –  A diehard New York Giants fan has created a scale replica of old Giants Stadium in his garage in New Jersey.

Don Martini, 75, began building the mini stadium in 2010 after the real Giants Stadium was decommissioned and demolished, The (Newark, NJ) Star-Ledger reported Sunday.

Martini worked on his model, which is 20 feet long and 17 feet wide, for about eight hours a day for the past two years. He said he had no plans, just a vision of what he was creating.

“Have you seen the movie Mozart’s Amadeus?” Martini said. “Well, in the movie, the emperor commissions him to write an opera. In the process of writing it, the emperor would say, ‘I want to see the first scene.’ Mozart told him, ‘I don’t have anything to show you. It’s all right here in my noodle.’ That’s the same way it was with this.”

The stadium, complete with lights, trains and working elevators, cost Martini about $20,000 to build.

Martini, who retired in his early 50s after inventing and patenting a universal assembly jig for cabinet making, has also created a small village in his back yard that includes a working, elevated train, a windmill, and nine waterfalls.

He converted his garage into a showroom for the stadium, although not many people have seen it.

Martini’s friends have encouraged him to charge people a few dollars to visit the stadium, and his son has suggested he give it to the Giants, maybe in exchange for season tickets.

Even if the Giants agree to display it, Martini has mixed emotions about parting with his creation.

“Maybe,” he said, “I could build another one.”