From Super Bowls to Michael Jordan, Muhammad Ali to ‘last resort,’ the Superdome has seen it all

New Orleans – Spring of 1982. He remained sixteen seconds in the NCAA final, and a skinny student from North Carolina is burying the bird that provides a championship and changes his life.

He appeared in New Orleans this week like Mike Jordan. Michael left.

By this point, the sprawling steel building was used that provided the road to the arrival of Jordan to the national awareness-Lyziana Suprdum, the seven-year-old-to hold the theater that is revealed inside its walls. In November 1980, with the passage of seconds at the end of the eighth round of the World weight championship, boxer Roberto Duran, tired of chasing sugar Ray Leonard around the ring, and waved his glove in power and raised him to his corner. “No diamond, no diamond”, muttered. This was the first time that the world champion has voluntarily gave the title 16 years.

Two years ago, the same stadium witnessed the last victory of Mohamed Ali 56, a unanimous decision on Lyon Spinacra, the WBA heavyweight title.

The Maravic House ran the break here. Keith Smart’s Jumper won the title here. Chris Weber called a deadline that she had no.

In 1978, the place hosted the first Super Bowl at peak time. Thirty -five years later, the lights came out in another. Tom Brady won the first here; Brady Idol, Joe Montana, the latter won here.

In 1981, Rolling Stones performed 8,7500 – then a record crowd of an internal music party. He visited the Pope. Presidents, too.

But for the indigenous New Orleans, nothing will match the Punt night, which was banned from Steve Gleston in making the city feel completely again.

Not after the destruction that occurred when Hurricane Katrina fell on August 29, 2005. When the dam and the patents erupted, SuperDome became “a shelter for displaced citizens. Thousands gathered inside with anywhere else to operate. Plum failed. Air air conditioning failed. Evil winds peel off parts of the roof .

The city of Tatarj, its citizens left scars, and its famous stadium.

After twelve months, SuperDome was restored, and with it, New Orleans. Doug Thornton, CEO of ASM Global, the company that runs the stadium, watched the fans of the saints across the gates on the night of the opening match of tears rolling in the cheeks. He now says: “They never thought they would return,” he says now.

This was a very symbolic moment, the team set up a statue to celebrate it.

After forcing Atlanta Falcons on three and outside on the first possession of the game, Gleston was placed to prevent Pont Michael Quinn’s attempt. His teammate Cortis Delose regained the ball as it rolled in the end area for a landing in New Orleans, which started a grilled celebration. “I was never in a stadium with a louder stadium,” said Mike Teriko of ESPN later in the American Football Association films.

Super (SUPER BOWL VII SUPERDome on Sunday. No other stadium hosts more than six. It is a testament to the rarest American sports places, which has withstood the test of time despite a set of factors that fight its age, including architectural developments and the worst mother nature it offers. Moreover, in the era of the stadiums worth billions of dollars and the same stadiums, and the US Football Association’s privileges are less and less than NFL calling home.

The saints are still doing. This is how New Orleans prefers it.

“I spent half of my life in this building,” said Thornton, whose office has been over the past 28 years in SuperDome. “We have always been joking that New Orleans looked at SuperDome as a living room. It is the place where we see our high school children. It is the place where we meet for the games of the saints. The monster has a monster truck. For all these main events that we host every year like Sugar Bowl.

“People are just revealing this place.”

MacIe Washington tends Bar in Walk-ans a few buildings from the stadium. New Orleans without SuperDome? Thought remains in its mind for a few moments. She shakes. You never considered it.

“Everything that happens in the dome, we feel here,” she says. “It is the heart of our city.”

Looking at similar places was constructed in the same era, during what was then a new wave of American ingenuity: Astrodome Houston (opened in 1965, closed in 2008), Detroit Pontelk Silverfum (opened 1975, closed in 2013); Kingdome Seattle (opened in 1976, closed in 2000); Minneapolis’ Metrodome (opened in 1982, closed in 2013), Indianapolis RCA Dome (opened in 1984, closed in 2008). All, except for Stritomi, has been demolished.

SuperDome is still standing, partly due to a $ 557 million plastic surgery in four US Football Association seasons, will have a different view of Super Bowl Lix. More than $ 100 million of this came directly from the owner of the saints, Gayel Benson, according to Jay Cheryon, President and CEO of the New Orleans Sports Foundation. “If this is not evidence that they want to stay, I do not know what it is.”

Cicero does not mean staying in New Orleans. It means staying in SuperDome.

“To continue planning and finance renovations on the field instead of demolishing it and building a new one from the zero point?” Calcher will continue. “This only talks about how important New Orleans.”

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Thornton says that the original price of the building, which was returned to 1967, was about $ 42 million. But by unveiling the 1975 a long time ago, the cost jumped to 160 million dollars. It was a way to achieve an end. The city wanted the US Football Association concession. Legend has long told the league commissioner Roselle New Orleans, Dave Dixon – who led the batch – that his city could have a team as long as this has achieved one critical case.

“It is better to build a stadium with a roof due to all thunderstorms,” ​​said Rosel.

Dixon is binding. Louisiana has held the largest domain stadium in the country. The building covers 13 acres. At its top, the ceiling is 273 feet from the ground. “Within two million square feet below the surface,” “Thornton admires.” When it opened, twice the size of Astrodome. “

He is also the fifth oldest active stadium in the American Football Association and will climb to fourth after the evacuation of the bills in the HighMark stadium in the coming years (and the third if the bears leave the Soldier field). The recent renovations, which Benson and the Saint Organization have updated the facility and opened Concourses to facilitate movement.

“It seems like a nightclub now for a runway,” says Sam Jovri, who spent 25 years with the major New Orleans Sports Foundation and is actually designed the first site on the stadium site in the mid -1990s. “It is a great example of what can happen if it continues to re -invest in a place instead of tearing it up.”

One message is dressed throughout the city this week, from the airport volunteers to the airport to banners at the Ernst N Center. Moreal Conferences: This is what we do. New Orleans is proud of its ability to host the major events, and in the midst of that is the huge stadium – a short distance from almost anywhere – turned the city’s capabilities from the moment it opened.

“The SuperDome New Orleans put on the map,” said Thornton. “Before being built, our main industries were oil, gas and shipping. Now, our main industries are tourism, oil, gas and shipping.

“I am always joking,” he continues, “Once someone appears to Super Bowl here, they handed over a hurricane from Bat Opion at the airport and head to the French neighborhood and never leave.”

Like Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Fenway Park in Boston, Wrigley Field in Chicago and Madison Square Garden in New York, Superdome has formulated a unique intimate relationship with a city and its inhabitants. “We are not the largest market in the world. In fact, we are very small compared to most of the cities of the American Football Association.” “But we can compete for these main events and host these major events, and begins with a really amazing and amazing place. Superdome is just part of the New Orleans fabric.”

This is why the saints do not care about finding a new house.

For this reason, Super Bowl continues to find his way to New Orleans.

“This society has such a way to put its character on it,” said US Football Association Commissioner Roger Godel earlier this week when asked why Big Easy was asked a fixed player in the Super Bowl in the league. “I think people here wrap their arms around them and make them better. I think we have realized that this is the perfect place for Super Bowl.”

(Clarification: Dan Goldfarb / Athlete; Pictures: Aaron M. Sprers, Mane Milan, Bob Rosato, James Drake / Sports explained via Getti Irish)