Branford Marsalis has traveled around the world, but a journey is returned to his hometown of New Orleans. He visited Los Angeles, where he was a band leader in the “tonight show” in the early 1990s, and was invited to a local talk show that was being broadcast from the Supermodome.
Marsalis, who is now 64 -year -old, knew the building well. An enthusiastic sports and music fans, he watched many Saints football and Jazz Basketball sports as well as concerts and other programs. He also sold programs in the Saints Games. When he went to the stadium, the joy of those days killed him.
“As soon as I saw the field, I controlled all these emotions and bought the season tickets with anxiety,” said Marsalis. “When it opened, there were very few dome stadiums, and none of them looked like this. It was a huge place.
Marsalis could not use his season ticket because he was living in California, so he gave them to his brother and band Mate. But the purchase of its continuity was a reminder that the building, which is getting 50 years old this year, and representing it still to her and many others to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. There is a grip of links.
For the past half century, the sprodome has been known as the sports location. It is a saint’s home, and is also a host for super bowels, final squares, title bouts and other sports, including high school and college football, baseball and football. Tom Brady won his first Super Bowl there, and this is the place where a new man named Michael Jordan made a jump that won the national honor for the North Carolina men’s basketball team.
But the supermodome, along with its specific peak, covers more than 13 acres and has a quarter million square feet of space used for conventions, weddings, promises and hundreds of other programs. The building welcomed the Mardi Grass Parade, Graduation, the Republican National Convention and Pope John Paul II. In the words of its longtime manager, Doug Thornton, the supermodome is the “city residential room”.
“This is a citizen memorial built during the city’s monuments,” said Avon Holmes, deputy of Thornton, who manages the Supermodome and a smooth King Center at the next door of the Louisiana Stadium and Explosive District. “The feeling of space is a sense of pride. It is a local location as a national location.
On Sunday, the Supermodome will be transformed into an international location when he hosts his record eighth super bowl, and provides background when the global audience sees the heads of Kansas City playing the role of Philadelphia Eagles. The building will look different during its last super bowl in 2013, when half the stadium lights fell into the dark during the third quarter, causing 34 minutes to stop. In the last five years, this building has renovated $ 560 million to add widespread harmony, new escorts, better kitchen and switches and more natural light.
It was the latest change in a building that is linked to the arrival of the saints in 1967, and the ambitions of the city that were no longer wanted to be removed as colorful ancient. Supermodome was one of the first largest buildings built in New Orleans in the post -Jim era, and played a central role in the city’s life.
With its size and space -aged shape, the supermodome dominates the sky line and is a bacon for flying or driving passengers in the city. Nevertheless, its curved white roof and the outer part of the champagne bronze look like houses in the city of Pestal color, which are the city’s signature.
The building was designed to impress. Dave Dickson, a businessman who tried to land a supporter of a football team in the 1960s, wanted a stadium that would organize programs, but also to New Orleans from the shadow of Atlanta, Houston and other major southern cities. Will pick up
Unlike most of the stadiums of this period, it was built on an important route to the city, a short distance from hotels, restaurants and bars, and near a former cemetery, which caused the saints to hesitate.
Dickson lobbied the then NFL commissioner Pete Rosel for a new team. In 1966, when the league needed a no -confidence exemption to integrate with the AFL, Dickson added the list of representative Hello Bogus, the majority of the House, and Senator Russell Long, belonging to Louisiana, who Helped to make legislation. In a thin veil, ProvD Provo, New Orleans was given a franchise on all saints around the same time and started playing at Tolin Stadium in 1967.
The governor of the state, Dickson and John McKethan, were quickly found to work in the stadium. He visited Astrodome in Houston and left his commitment to make some big and more versatile.
The purpose was to open the supermodome for the 1972 NFL season, but was paid with bonds in support of construction, hotel taxes, not started until 1971. The stadium opened in August 1975, it was too late to host the Super Bowl IX, which led to the NFL hosted the NFL. Tolin moved. The cost rose to $ 163 million and included an artificial turf Mardi grass.
Within 2 million square feet, the stadium was a quick attraction, with 200,000 people visiting a year. Liz Brookman was brought from Chicago to his family’s relatives to watch the stadium. At a young age, she went to the school dance in the supermodome, and later attended the overnight party, Andyman Israfunza during the Mardi grass.
Now a season of saints, he and two friends formed “Super Dams”, who wear black clothing, gold caps and replika sprodomes as sports hats.
“Dome is our part, it is part of our identity,” he said. When you are in Chicago, you see the Sears tower. When you are in New Orleans, you see a supermodome.
The Sunnah was horrible in its early years, and there was little change in moving to the supermodome. But the building became the home of the Romig Family. Jerry Romeig worked as an annual public address for 446 cents continuously by 2013, when his son Mark took office. His second son, Jay, has been a time keeper, and his daughter, Mary Beth Haskins, has worked as a spatter, helped Mark to identify the players whose names are announced. Need
The team targeted in 1980 when it won 1-15 and fans wore paper bags on their heads. Archie Manning was the quarterback of the team, which was so brutally promoted that his wife, Olivia, stopped taking his sons to Paton and Patton. They both later played high school football games.
“It was a great hope to see this big thing going to the city at all,” said Archie Manning.
Despite the losing of the saints, the team attracted fans from across the Gulf coast, and became a constant host for New Orleans Super Bowl because it was compact, together with bars and restaurants, and over time convention. There were plenty of space and hotel rooms.
From 1979 to 2005, Jim Stag, who runs a super bowl for the NFL, said, “The super bowl grew up with the city.
The Supermodome hosted the first indoor super bowl in 1978, and was the first to add the suit. After the attacks on September 11, 2001, New Orleans also hosted the first Super Bowl. The season was delayed by a week, forcing the league to spend millions of dollars, which was already scheduled.
Although Stagn said, New Orleans was one of the few cities that could adjust the additional planning needed for this super bowl as the league had to deal with only a local politician and departments. “There were a lot of continuity and those who could help you work,” he said.
Out of the game, this Super Bowl is famous for U2’s Half Time Show and Robert Craft, owner of New England Patriots, announced, “We are all Patriots” when his team beat St. Louis Ramus for his first title Give
But then at the age of a quarter century, the Superrom, now new stadiums for revenue -generating facilities were not highlighted. Saints’ owner Tom Benson detected alternatives, including transferring the team to Mississippi. The state and the team eventually selected the renovation of the Superdo, and the projects ended extensively when Hurricane Katrina defeated the city in 2005.
After the floods of New Orleans, the supplom, had a large hole in its roof, shelter for tens of thousands. The saints abolished San Antonio, where they played three domestic games at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, and played four more games. The Banson wanted to move the team permanently to Texas, but League Commissioner Paul Taglibo refused to leave the city. Local business leaders are feared that if the supplement falls into the dark, the city looks as if it is closed, which will damage tourism.
In December 2005, Taglibo visited New Orleans and promised NFL support to fix the Supermodome on time in the 2006 season.
“As terrifying was Katrina, and it was terrifying, terrifying, terrifying, if there was a silver lining, she focused us on the building,” said Dennis Laosa, president of the saint team.
Taglibo sent a former league executive Frank Wono to sell tickets, sweets and sponsorship.
“It was as impossible as the mission,” Wono said. “I created US companies trying to save the American city right now.”
In the early minutes of the return to the Saint’s Supermodome, the Defense Back Steve Glacin stopped the Atlanta Falcons’ pont, which was recovered for the touchdown, which is the first score in a win. The fans hugged and shouted inside and outside. The team, the stadium and the city returned.
On Sunday, when the fans file in the Super Bowl, many of them will pass a sculpture reminding Glexen’s game outside the building, another moment when the Superrom remembers the New Orleans’ flexibility world Help in the way.
