Giants Stadium no more.

This post would probably read best as a blues song -- something like:

They tore down the ol' Stadium today.
The swamp just swallowed it whole, some say.
Everyone better off that way.

I'll avoid further embarrassment by conforming to a prose style more befitting a white guy who grew up 20 miles west of the maligned but memory-filled Giants Stadium, shown above in an early stage of demolition.

A non-story here in Australia, of course, but I imagine comedians and local TV reporters are hauling out the ghost of Jimmy Hoffa (left). The Stadium's unveiling in the '70s unleashed a hail of 'Hoffa's buried 10 feet unda de 50 yard line' jokes. Giants football had been so bad, for so long, they'd become non-entities. Moving to Jersey from NY was considered ... appropriate. Wisecracks about the fate of the long-missing union boss gave the new place instant notoriety -- a little juice.

Giants Stadium. Concrete concourses ripe with the smells of cheap cigar smoke, overflowing urinals, spilled beer, burnt pretzels and Old Spice. A list of memories as long as a walk down one of its spiral ramps. Here's the escalator version:

• Because the Giants of the late '70s were terrible my dad was able to get great seats downstairs to see the league's better teams, including the Cowboys, Redskins, Eagles. Legends like Roger Staubach, Tony Dorsett, John Riggins, Wilbert Montgomery and others manhandled the Giants of Joe Pisarcik (right), Dave Jennings, John Mendenhall and Brad Van Pelt. I loved Big Blue anyway.
• Voice of Bob Sheppard: "Pisarcik to Gray, incomplete. Fourth down." Slumming it on the west side of the Hudson, far removed from his papal-like perch at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx.
• A young Joe Montana handing off to an old OJ Simpson during the running back's final season with the 49ers.
• Attending Cosmos soccer games. My dad ... an absolutely magnificent man. Would love to ask him why he took Kevin and I to watch a sport he cared little about. I clearly remember Latino fans jeering Italy's Giorgio Chinaglia (left) for hanging back at midfield. Germany's Franz Beckenbauer, Brazil's Carlos Alberto, Holland's Johan Neeskens, even the American Ricky Davis ... some of the world's greatest, right there amid North Jersey's checkerboard mix of ethnic neighborhoods.
• Sitting slack-jawed as a young madman named Lawrence Taylor re-invented the definition of linebacker. And civilisation.
• Watching from seats high in the clouds on a frozen Saturday as Joe 'Big Nose' Danelo kicked a late field goal to send the Giants into overtime against the Cowboys and then kick another one to pave the way for the Giants to advance to the playoffs for the first time in my life in December 1981.
• Partaking in an all-day Amnesty International 'Conspiracy of Hope' concert in 1986. Lebanon Valley College pal Tod Roach and I sat on a poorly tarped floor of the Stadium and got stoned on clouds of second-hand smoke. Concert highlights were many, though I've forgotten most. A band from Philly called the Hooters opened early in the afternoon and were followed by Yoko Ono, who got booed singing 'Imagine'. Rest of the day brought acts ranging from the mighty Joan Armatrading to Lou Reed to Bryan Adams to Howard Jones to Peter Gabriel to U2 (at the height of their youthful powers) and a special reunion performance by The Police.

• A David Bowie show that featured two widely divergent opening acts: Squeeze, whom I'd seen a half dozen times in much smaller venues, and an act with a hit single at the time called Lisa Lisa and the Cult Jam. Other than a great show by Bowie, my strongest memories are of drunken white guys hailing Lisa Lisa and her bandmates with an ocean of middle fingers and my buddy Dave trying to protect his half-naked girlfriend from being groped on the Stadium floor.
• Becoming aware of a morbid fascination as Emmitt Smith of the Cowboys single-handedly knocked the Giants out of the playoff picture on the last game of the '93 season. With a broken shoulder. Pain of the OT loss was blunted by the company of Eric Houston & co.
• U2 in the early '90s in seats that were most likely in a different area code than Bono's position at the mic.
• During the Cowboys mid-90s domination I went to a game with Edward Natoli. His uncle, who lived near the Stadium just off Rt 17, was a season ticket holder who' strangely agreed to sell his tix to, in Edward, a long-time, die-hard 'Boys fan. Great seats, downstairs just up from the field. But I had to sit beside a guy rooting for Dallas. Worth it? I really couldn't say.
• A Jets game. It rained. The Jets at Giants Stadium? Please.
• Springsteen and the E Street Band, simply too many times to count. Just as important was parking lot 5J, home to dozens of pre- and post-show gatherings with friends from around the globe.

It's a wonderful life, given extra oomph gas by a big ol' windy hulk of a stadium in the swamps. Who'd a figured, huh, Jimmy?