(Official editorial at the Advocate/Times-Picayune, Aug. 10)
The SuperDoom. The StuporDome.
Those were among the monikers that critics used for the Louisiana Superdome early on. Amid all the well-deserved plaudits for the Dome as it celebrates the 50th anniversary of its Aug. 9, 1975, opening, it is worth remembering just how controversial the arena once was.
For plowing forward amid all the blowback, the visionaries who proposed and built it deserve even more credit. The Dome expanded and anchored what had threatened to become a moribund downtown, even as it permanently put New Orleans on the map, very much for the better, as a “big event” city.
Yet in the early years, the detractors were many. Some who loved fall afternoons in grand old Tulane Stadium resented being forced indoors. Many complained that the cost should be borne by private interests, not taxpayers, and further complained when the outlays rose from a projected $35 million to $165 million. The first management company for the stadium was subjected to repeated allegations of mismanagement, as the Superdome was a money loser in its early years.
And some folks didn’t like the aesthetic. Famed Louisiana writer Walker Percy described it in an essay as looking like the top of a “giant Ban Roll-On” deodorant.
In the big picture, though, idea-man Dave Dixon, Gov. John McKeithen, mayors Victor Schiro and Moon Landrieu and other Superdome supporters were overwhelmingly right. The Dome remains an architectural marvel and an unparalleled event space. And few buildings in the history of the United States have proved as vital and valuable, both economically and psychologically, as the Superdome has been for New Orleans and the whole state.
Credit also goes to those, including Gov. Kathleen Blanco and the Superdome Management Group’s Doug Thornton, who insisted on and spearheaded the Dome’s amazingly rapid rehabilitation after Hurricane Katrina, not just as an economic necessity but as a massive symbol of hope to a region still reeling from the storm’s aftermath…. [The rest of the editorial is at this link.]
