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As a result, the project stirred controversy as hot and heavy as a tabas-coed gumbo. However, as silver-haired Mayor Moon Landrieu, one of the dome's founding fathers, points out, in terminable legal challenges and investigations failed to produce a single indictment or even a documented charge of hanky-panky (though in Huey Long country it is hard to believe some politicians did not profit, at least indirectly, from the project). However, Le Maire insists, "Only politicians could have put this thing together. It could never have been built by a blue ribbon commission. Sure, we made mistakes, but I think history will vindicate us. The dome would cost $500 million to build today. I don't think any other city will have the courage and imagination to build anything like it again."
Its catalytic effect is manifest. As far as outside investors are concerned, it is The Superdome Named Desire.
The building is credited to a considerable extent for the biggest construction boom in New Orleans history: $1.5 billion worth to date. There are now 10,000 quality hotel rooms within a short stroll of the dome. The most convenient of all is the 1,200-room Hyatt Regency, which has a broad elevated ramp leading to the Superdome's second level over Loyola Avenue. There is a new 1,200-room Hilton that has enjoyed the most successful first year of any hotel in the chain. Near by is a 42-story Marriott, which has 1,000 rooms and is adding 414 more. It will be topped by a new 50-story, 1,200-room Sheraton. Four major new office buildings have gone up in the revivified district. Only one corporation in Fortune's 500, the Lykes shipping and steel concern, has headquarters in New Orleans (v. ten in Houston, four in Atlanta) but this, too, may change if this exuberant, graceful city can reassert its unique identity.
For "the city that care forgot," tourism has traditionally been the second biggest money-spinner after its port, the nation's second busiest. The French Quarter, its major magnet, is a trap, not an attraction, a mart of sleazy sex shows, watered whisky and jaded jazz.
However, New Orleans still has some of the best restaurants in the U.S., and some elegant hotels outside the dome area (most notably, the Pont-chartrain), which theoretically can only get better with the influx of well-heeled visitors that Superdome events are attracting.
If it takes French bread and circuses to lead New Orleans out of hell.
let the game go on.