A Mini Photo Essay: The New Giants Stadium

As opposed to the old Giants Stadium, which has been demolished in the parking lot.  I am wondering what parking space Jimmy Hoffa is now buried under.

So, on Sundays when they flip the LCD switch from blue to green, is this called the new Jets Stadium?  As opposed to the old Jets Stadium, which is also demolished in the parking lot.  As opposed to the older Jets Stadium, which was Shea and is also now a parking lot.  Welcome to the Len Speaks Urban Renewal Fiesta.

I'm not going to give you all the specifics on how I wound up in a spanking new and borderline decadent Giants Stadium luxury suite for last Sunday's football contest versus the hapless Dallas Cowboys.  Trust me when I say I do know some important people who allow me to step into their universe on a rare occasion, even if it was from a Pluto-like orbit.  

So, yes, there was me.  Making an odd and rare appearance at a football game.

Truth be told, I used to be a big New York Jet fan.  I remember a game at Shea where the wind chill was thirty below and my frostbite was so bad that I almost fainted and wound up in a puddle of somebody else's sick in the mens room.  Over the years, I've moved a little bit away from the sport, but I do show a renewed interest whenever the Jets are decent.

So, of course, I make my return to a NFL football stadium and the Jets are in Cleveland.  Oh, well.

I've never quite understood the allure of tailgating.  Showing up six or seven hours before a game and munching on chips and guacamole that is almost gray by game time.  Meanwhile, you're trying to find a parking space while playing Whack-A-Mole with all the tailgaters standing in your way.

Seriously, the parking procedures at this place are nothing short of the French resistance to the Nazis during World War II.  Translation: they're nonexistent.  I have no idea how season ticket holders manage to do this for eight games a season.  I celebrated two birthdays before I even hit the on ramp to the New Jersey Turnpike.   

From the outside, the stadium looks like an office building.  Everything there is also interchangeable.  All the Giants signage flips to Jet signage in an Emerson Boozer heartbeat.

The really fancy luxury suites have the very best views.  Like ours on the forty yard line.  If one of these photos show up with mustard stains, you will forgive me.

There are huge TV screens all over the park and the rays are probably strong and lethal enough to shorten your life by about ten years.  The suites are also full of telecasts of other games around the league.  I spent about ten minutes at the Giants game watching the Jets win in overtime.  There was a little pushback, however, when I asked somebody if we could switch the channel to "Desperate Housewives."

For most of the game, I bounced around from the cushioned seats to the living room setting that was also attached.  The food kept coming as fast as the Giant penalties.

Sometime early in the third quarter, the lights were flickering as I was mid-bratwurst.  Several moments later, the entire stadium was plunged into darkness.  I am talking Space Mountain-like blackness.  While the Giants weren't generating much offense, the New Jersey power grid apparently stopped working altogether.  The stadium cost over one billion bucks and still they choose to buy light bulbs from Al Gore? 

It lasted really only for about six seconds, but, for one moment in time, the folks in the luxury suites, the fans in the club level, and the yokels up in the rafters all made a singular discovery.

Everybody looks alike in the dark.

Dinner last night: Turkey burger at BJs.