Star Ledger- The idea that would consume two years of his life and drain $20,000 from his bank account, the obsession that turned his garage into a jaw-dropping shrine for his favorite football team, came to him in the middle of the night. Don Martini had been searching for a new project. He had built kayaks and gazebos and furniture in his Blairstown workshop, turned his backyard into a village with an elevated rail for model trains, a working windmill and a lighthouse. He needed something else. Something bigger. “I’m going to build Giants Stadium,” he declared one morning. Nothing prepares you when you walk through the door, because the words “model” and “replica” are insufficient to describe what Martini has constructed. It is 20 feet long and 17 feet wide. It was built with an attention to detail that, truth be told, the original architects never had. Giants Stadium was deemed obsolete soon after it opened. It was torn down in 2010 after just 34 years of service, and in the years since, few have mourned its demolition. Martini did. He loved it enough to spend eight hours a day for nearly two full years rebuilding it, selling his antique car to clear the space.

In the words of Michael Keaton:

Check out the photo gallery here and the video here if you’re a total dork who’s into shit like this. Don’t get me wrong, it’s impressive – for about 3 seconds. After that, if Don Martini is giving me the tour and pointing out the “235 tiny 5-watt halogen bulbs for the light stanchions” or explaining the “countless hours leaning over a table saw to cut 65,000 red-and-blue seats”, I’m staring blankly at him as if he’s my girlfriend telling me about her day. I guess that’s just me being less like Don & more like KFC building a desk. I’d have gotten exactly 3 table saw cuts in before I said “Fuck this!” and peeled out of the garage in my ’66 Vette I didn’t sell. Different strokes…

@610Barstool