TOM GARVEY-THE SECRET APARTMENT

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Episode Transcript

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This is later with Lee Matthews theLee Matthews Podcast More what You Hear Weekday
Afternoon's on the Drive. Tom Garmygrew up in Ridley Park. He served
as the US Army Special Forces inthe Vietnam War, and during his service
he became a Green Beret, endedup coming back home and becoming very close
with his home team. He's writtenall about it in a new book called

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The Secret Apartment and Tom, thisisn't about a group of children finding a
secret apartment and secretly restoring it fortheir wanton and lonely uncle. All that
would be the Secret Gardens. WhatI'm referring to this is not the Secret
Yeah, yeah, yeah it was. It was an old concession stand that

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I used for storage because I wasrunning all the parking lot and once a
year I would get as much asa tractor trailer full of parking tickets to
you during the year because we hadso many events, and I had an
event almost every day of the year, because I worked not only at bet
Stadium, but I ran the parkinglots, which the adjoining parking lots for
the Spectrum where the Philadelphia Flyers andSixers and Rock concerts and all kinds of

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events took place there also, soI had a reason to be in the
stadium almost every day of the year. And I just sort of hid in
plain sight. I was ubiquitous.All people got used to seeing me.
They never thought twice about it.And I hid in plain sight and I
got away with it for two yearsand four months without ever getting caught.
So were you using your skills asa green Beret to blend in with the

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local camouflage. The government spent alot of money training me an unconventional warfare
and unconventional things. So I knewI could hide. I could hide in
plain sight and get away with it. And did you have anything to lose?
I mean, I know, Iwork so much, I may as
well set up a cot here atthe studio. There was something to lose.

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I mean, my uncles ran theconcessions there. They had a fifteen
year contract for all food, drink, and novelties. And that's how I
had gotten the job. And theyhad picked up the parking concession because something
happened in Something happened to the parkingconcessionaire in the late right around nineteen seventy
six or seventy seven and they weresummarily fired and my uncle had to take

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over for the remainder of the contract, which was until nineteen eighty one eighty
one. It came up for acompetitive bid then and we were outbid by
another firm that wanted to They wantedso badly. They really gave a very
very reasonable bid, but they weren'tmaking as much money and I was.

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If I had gotten caught, itwould have reflected on my uncles rather badly
and they would have been in trouble. So there was a lot There was
a lot of risk there. TheSecret Apartment vet Stadium a surreal memoir Tom
Garvey talks about from nineteen seventy nineto nineteen eighty one, he basically lived
at work an empty concession stand insideVett Stadium, and it was some are

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calling it kind of a kind ofa foot a sporting event version of the
Phantom of the Opera, except youweren't trying to kill people. No.
I didn't ever hear part any hurtor anybody now, so that was my
motive. I was just there fora good time and had bring sneak friends
into games, and you know,watch I watched a lot of games.

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I loved to roller skate around thestadium at night when it was empty.
That was beautiful to be in thestadium on a Sunday with sixty some thousand
rabid fans in bad weather, andthen to be there a couple of nights
later was just it was It waslike being a cloister. It was.
It was schizophrenic, but it wasreally good for me. And it was
good for a writer to have allthat time by himself, and he wrote

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all about it. In the secretapartment. Tom Garby is with us,
so you had access to concessions.You had access I gathered to climate control,
heating and cooling inside that stand.It was very comfortable in there,
and the summer it was just coolbecause it was cavernous. Yeah, in
the winter it was warm because becauseit had to be heated because the pipes

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were freeze so there were a lotof hot pipes running through there with hot
water in them, so they keptthe room very warm. It it was
really cozy in the winter. Didyou sneak into the locker room to take
your showers? I didn't have togo into the Phillies or the Eagles locker
rooms because There was another locker roomdown under the stadium for the city workers,

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and I was welcome to have alocker there. And I had showers,
and I had a couple of lockersthere with all my clothes in it,
clean clothes, shower things, myjogging things, you know, toilet
trees, shaving whatever. I hadeverything I needed. Laundromat down down the
road, maybe not down the road. There was a commissary because they had
a restaurant. They also ran arest throughout the stadium. I had a

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key to that to the commissary.I could go in there and use that
washers and dryers to clean my clothes. Yeah. I had a little golf
cart I could ride around. Ihad my roller skates for roller skating all
around the stadium and or riding myten speed bike. I had a pickup
truck. I had everything a guywould want. It was a man cave,

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but it was you wouldn't raise afamily there, But it was really,
really very comfortable. I had everythingyou could possibly want along those lines.
Tom Garvey, author of the SecretApartment. Did it interfere with your
shall we say social life? No? No, it augmented it. Actually,
I was very popular in the cityduring those those years. I could

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smuggle anybody I want it into anygame at any time, and I did.
Tom Garvey it's an amusing memoir calledThe Secret Apartment, how he lived
in Vet Stadium. And then Igot to ask, how did it all
come tumbling down? Or did itIt didn't tumble down. At the end
of nineteen eighty one, on thelast of the year, we were done

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with our contract. So I hadmoved all my stuff out weeks before and
prepared the place. It was stirall again and another concessionaire came in there
and then moved their equipment in andthey used that storage Well, they probably
didn't have access to that storage area, now that I think about it,
they wouldn't have had the same accessI did because they weren't tied into the

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concession in the inside. They juststayed in the outside office. They didn't
come into the inner area where Iwas. Tom Garvey The Secret Apartment in
ve Stadium, where he lived fromnineteen seventy nine to nineteen eighty one.
He writes all about it in thisremarkable book. It'll give you a chuckle,
and if you are a sports fan, maybe even give you some things

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to Hey, that might not bea bad life, and I don't.
It doesn't sound like it was.No, it wasn't. It was a
good life. It was a goodlife. And I was single at the
time. I didn't get married,so I was fifty years old. That's
the first time and only time I'veever been married. I'm still married to
this girl, my dreams and soa year after that, everything turned out
very well for me and I've beenvery happy ever since. Also, but

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you had to go get a peskyapartment, didn't you. Yeah, I
had to go get a pesty apartmentwith all you know, melling grass and
all that stuff, Tom Garvey.The name of the book is The Secret
Apartment. It's available everywhere. Thankyou for the story and for joining us
today. Thank you very much,Thank you, thank you very much.
I appreciate it. Thanks for listeningto Later with Lee Matthews, the Lee

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Matthews Podcast, and remember to listento The Drive Live weekday afternoons from five
to seven and iHeartMedia Presentation