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…