Don Martini, a 75-year-old fan of the New York Giants has taken his devotion for his favorite football team to a whole new level. The Blairstown-native spent the last two years and $20,000 building an astonishing replica of the Giant’s old stadium in his garage.
The crazy idea came to Don in the middle of the night. The next morning, he got up and told his wife “I’m going to build Giants Stadium”, but all he got out of her was “You’re crazy!” But not even she thought he would be crazy enough to actually go through with it. The truth is, Don Martini was in search of a new project. After turning his backyard into a miniature village complete with an elevated rail for model trains, a working windmill and a lighthouse, the man was looking for a new challenge, something bigger than everything he had created in the past. He decided to combine his love for the New York Giants with his passion for building stuff, so he actually started work on this astonishing model of the football team’s stadium.
Photo: Jerry McCrea/The Star-Ledger
As you know, beginning are always the hardest, and Don Martini had no idea where to start his project. He had found some photos and general specs on the internet but not much else, and he had no idea how he was going to make all those tens of thousands of seats. He spent weeks, through trial and error, trying to get the pitch of the three-level stadium just right, but then he was faced with the seat problem again. The craftsman considered making them one at a time, but that alone would have taken him years to finish, so instead he decided to take 8-foot-long pieces of a special moulding and make a small cut with his table saw every three-quarters of an inch. “It was tedious, but I knew I had to do 100 a day or I’d never get done,” he told NJ.com. “I couldn’t work on those all day because I’d go cuckoo.” He tried to get every little detail just right, but one of the main problems was finding the right parts. He had to buy 235 tiny 5-watt halogen bulbs for the light stanchions, at $1.96, that he fastened into place with special hose washers, install two small TVs, one in each end zone, and bend strips of metal used on electric fences for handrails. He added benches, tiny orange Gatorade jugs, and even sponsor billboards.
Photo: Jerry McCrea/The Star-Ledger
The 20 feet long and 17 feet wide stadium model took two years to complete and put a $20,000 hole in Don Martini’s budget, but he has no regrets. His garage is now a tribute to the team he has loved all his life, and one that impresses every other Giants fan that walks through the door. Once in a while, another fan walks into his bagel shop in Blairstown, New Jersey, and he takes them out back to see his masterpiece. “And then they walk through the door,” he says, “and without fail, they say, ‘Hoool-eee …’ ” And who can blame them?
Photo: Jerry McCrea/The Star-Ledger
Although his son suggested he give the awesome replica to the New York Giants, Martini is not sure he wants to part with it. “Maybe I could build another one”, he said.
Source: NJ.com
