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THE SECRET APARTMENT by Tom Garvey

THE SECRET APARTMENT

by Tom Garvey


A collection of breezy, upbeat essays recall a man’s two years as a secret resident of Philadelphia’s Veterans Stadium.

It began as a “distraction” to amuse Garvey’s friends during the Covid-19 isolation. An essay here, an essay there, until a cohort pointed out that he had written 40,000 words. It was time, the author decided, to turn this short story project into a full-fledged memoir about his adventures living in an unused concession booth under the slope of the 300-level seats in left field at the Vet. In the mid-1970s, Garvey was close to coming apart at the seams: “I was the person in my extended family dancing to music nobody else could hear.” He was a Vietnam War Special Forces veteran who had just finished college while working the night shift at Westinghouse. Now, mentally and emotionally exhausted, he became a part-time cashier supervisor for the parking lots at the Vet sports complex, working for his cousin. This led to his reluctantly agreeing to assume full management of the lots. The job brought with it a steady paycheck, an office in the stadium, and the key to a nondescript side-door entrance. In early October 1979, during the chaos of two major city and stadium events, he slept in the Vet’s temporary storage room he had arranged for a former Eagles tight end he befriended. In a bold move, Garvey rearranged the furniture, added some accoutrements, and settled in until the end of 1981. Team sports enthusiasts will especially enjoy the play-by-plays of Phillies and Eagles games and envy the friendships the author formed with some noted players. But readers need not recognize the names on the score card to become immersed in Garvey’s edgy, bad-boy irreverent, sometimes soulful prose. He describes nights sitting alone in the top row of the empty stadium: “Meditating at times like this, drove me inside myself to where my deepest meanings were.” Interspersed are grand exploits, such as his mind-bending, high-speed, roller-skating escapade around the Vet’s concrete circular loops, “alive with the night, reveling in one of the greatest views of The City of Brotherly Love that ever existed.”

A touching, amusing, and engagingly unique Philadelphia story.