Crowds haven’t climbed up the concrete stairs leading to the Meadowlands Arena in almost five years.

The luxury boxes that once fetched big bucks for games and performances have been turned into offices.

And dressing rooms used by everyone from Frank Sinatra to The Grateful Dead have been repurposed for wardrobing actors before they hit the sound stage.

This is retired life for the arena, formerly known as the Izod Center.

After 34 years of rock shows, sporting events and even being ranked the highest-grossing arena for family shows in the country, the Izod Center was shut down in 2015.

Since that time, the state-owned facility has quietly been used as a rehearsal stage by major music stars and, more recently, it’s being leased by NBC Universal to film a television series.

The relationship between NBC and the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority, which owns the arena, is the byproduct of a tax credit signed by Governor Phil Murphy that took affect last year and was meant to draw business to the state from film and digital media companies.

Two years ago, production companies spent about $68 million in New Jersey. Last year they spent in excess of $350 million, according to the NJ Motion Picture and Film Commission.

“This is building, so we’re really creating an industry here at lightening speed,” said Steve Gorelick, executive director of the film commission.

It’s been a while since the 39-year-old arena in the Meadowlands was part of something exciting.

When you pass the white and red trimmed arena, now wedged within the sprawling American Dream mega-mall development, it looks like a relic.

No corporate sponsor has its name above the entrance. After being dubbed the Brendan Byrne Arena, Continental Airlines Arena and Izod Center, now it’s known simply as the Meadowlands Arena, but without a sign.

The New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority broke ground on the roughly 20,000-seat arena in February 1979. More than two years later, on July, 2, 1981, the $85 million venue debuted with six sold-out shows by Jersey’s own Bruce Springsteen.

Even at seven months past deadline, the locker and dressing rooms weren’t yet painted. The parts of the venue ticket-holders saw were ready to go. But it would be weeks after its opening before the project was fully completed.

The venue quickly filled its seats by booking acts like The Rolling Stones, Michael Jackson, Rush and many more. It hosted Stanley Cup and NBA Championships, circuses, ice shows and college graduations.

But as time went on, competition from new arenas in Newark and Brooklyn made the arena more and more dependent on the state for subsidies.

The New Jersey Devils hockey team, which had been paying $46,700 per home game to play at the Izod Center, moved to the Prudential Center when it opened in 2007. The Nets, who paid between $50,000 and $60,000, per home game left in 2010, playing for a couple of years at the Prudential Center before their new home at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn was finished.

Each of those teams were playing 41 home games per year at the Meadowlands Arena. And competition from the newly built Prudential Center, just 10 miles away, whittled entertainment bookings from 131 events in 2013 to just 48 in 2015.

The NJSEA voted in January 2015 to shut down the Izod Center. At the time it was hemorrhaging $700,000 per month and was projected to lose $8.4 million by the end of the year.

“In its heyday, I think it was the first or second most used facility of that kind in the country,” said Jon Hanson, a former chairman of the NJSEA, who was not on the board at the time the arena was shut down. “Once the Prudential Center opened, it was used less and less and I think the NJSEA determined it just was not economically feasible to keep it open.”

Unknown Jersey about the abandoned arena in the Meadowlands, the former Izod Center. The NJSEA is currently renting it to NBC to shoot their show Lincoln Rhyme. The building is in East Rutherford, February, 5, 2020 The arena is next to the American Dream Mall as seen from a parking deck.Ed Murray | NJ Advance Media for

Many in the region felt that the shutting down of the Izod Center was done to help protect the investment made in Newark with the Prudential Center.

“Bergen County paid the price at that point,” said Senator Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen).

Construction from the American Dream project also played into the decision to close the arena. The hulking white structure now sits nearly surrounded by the 3 million square foot mega-mall.

When the arena was shut down, the American Dream project was about to resume construction after a six-year stoppage during which Triple Five took over, renamed it American Dream and expanded the project. The massive development began its phased opening last October.

Meadowlands Regional Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Jim Kirkos said local businesses took a hit when the arena closed.

“It was a blow not only to the union workers and stage hands, but we lost the economic impact of event day activity,” he said. “The family of four who take their two kids to Disney on Ice is likely to go out to dinner to a local restaurant. It’s the sports bars, if it’s a sporting event. All the restaurant and hospitality-type businesses lost the positive impact of event activity.”

Weinberg was a vocal opponent of closing the arena. “It was a big fight at the time,” she said in a phone interview last week. “And what happened is history. But looking back, at least it’s viability for being used for other things is being shown.”

NBC Universal began leasing the arena in 2018. It shot one season of “The Enemy Within” there until the show was canceled and now is shooting “Lincoln Rhyme: Hunt for the Bone Collector” there.

The high ceilings and vast floor space in the arena make it easy to hang grids for lighting and production equipment and build sets to use as a forensic lab or a living room. And the outdoor spaces near the arena help, too. For example, the the old racetrack can be made to look like an airport. And the roads within the Meadowlands complex are also useful for filming.

NBC Universal’s current lease has the company paying the NJSEA $185,000 per month.

LINCOLN RHYME: HUNT FOR THE BONE COLLECTOR -- "Requiem" Episode 107 -- Pictured: (l-r) -- (Photo by: Elizabeth Fisher/NBC)Elizabeth Fisher/NBC

“The NJSEA is pleased that major television networks have looked to the Meadowlands Arena as an ideal filming and rehearsal space,” said Brian Aberback, a spokesman for the NJSEA.

“This use is in keeping with Governor Murphy’s initiative to make New Jersey a premiere national location for television and movie studios and productions that bring millions of dollars in jobs and goods to the state as well as increased business to local merchants,” he said.

Gorelick, of the state’s film commission, said the Garden State Film and Digital Media Jobs Act, which gives film companies tax credits on their expenses from 2019 to 2023, is the reason for NBC’s interest in filming in New Jersey.

NBC reached out to the commission when it began scouting for warehouses to use as a sound stage. The commission suggested the abandoned arena and within weeks, NBC and the NJSEA struck a deal.

“These people are really clever,” Gorelick said. “They use the scoreboard to count which scene and take they’re shooting. They use the hockey horn to signify when the cameras are rolling. They’re really utilizing what is there.”

The relationship has been a boon for the local economy.

NBC just wrapped filming for the first season of “Lincoln Rhyme,” and spent $63 million and employed 665 people to produce the show. The money went towards everything from hiring, to hardware, lumber, stationary, clothing and gas.

“They only get a tax credit on money they spend in the state,” Gorelick said. “So it’s not just film-related businesses that are enriched.”

While NBC might be bringing a lot of money and jobs to the area, it’s not the same as the pay-your-rent-in-one-night crowds the arena drew for places like Redd’s Restaurant & Biergarten in Carlstadt, said Kirkos of the Meadowlands Chamber.

He thinks there’s an even better use for the arena.

Kirkos wants to see a 300,000 to 400,000 square foot convention center in the Meadowlands, either by converting the arena into one or replacing it with a newly-built convention center.

When the Meadowlands hosted the Super Bowl and WrestleMania, the fan experience events that take place in the week leading up to the events were held in Manhattan or Brooklyn because there was no facility in the Meadowlands that could hold them. “New Jersey lost all that money,” he said.

The convention center could host amateur sporting events -- cheerleading competitions, wrestling tournaments -- college graduations, business to business or business to consumer trade shows, Kirkos said.

“All of those different activities bring different audiences,” he said, adding that they would eat in local restaurants, stay in nearby hotels and contribute to the local economy.

Neither the NJSEA nor American Dream would comment on their future interests or plans for the arena.

“Back in the seventies, the Meadowlands Sports Complex was world-renowned,” Kirkos said. “I want that again. We have American Dream, a great stadium, a beautiful racetrack -- now if we round that out with a couple hotels and a convention center, I think that model can power the economy for the region the way the original sports complex did.”

This article is part of “Unknown New Jersey,” an ongoing series that highlights interesting and little-known stories about our past, present, and future -- all the unusual things that make our great state what it is. Got a story to pitch? Email it to local@njadvancemedia.com.

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Allison Pries may be reached at apries@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @AllisonPries. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

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