All comments begin the same way: “I remember…”
“I remember standing in front of the space shuttle while my dad took pictures of me.”
“I remember riding the monorail and passing the Women’s Pavilion.”
“I remember seeing INXS and the Go-Go's concert on the same day.''
“I remember riding a gondola across the Mississippi River.”
Even better, State Archivist Melanie C. Montanaro remembers a nighttime gondola ride.
“Yes, we rode at night,” said the Mississippi Aerial River Transit, which stands as the centerpiece of the auditorium lobby of the Louisiana State Archives, where the 1984 Louisiana World's Fair is well underway. She said while looking at the gondola (abbreviated as MART).
Well, in a sense.
Both the Archives and the Old Louisiana State Capitol are celebrating the fair's 40th anniversary with two separate exhibits.
“In Memory of the 1984 Louisiana World's Fair” at the Old Capitol runs through Dec. 20. The Archives' “America's Last Fair: The 1984 Louisiana World's Fair” runs through December 13 at his Louisiana Gallery.
Now, the show extends to the display cases in the main foyer, research library, and entrance to the Archives auditorium. There stands one of his aerial gondolas that transports visitors on suspended cables from New Orleans to the West Bank and back again. 320 feet above the Mississippi River.
The main body of the Louisiana Gallery exhibit essentially greets visitors at the entrance to the archives, but the first thing that catches the eye is the gondola standing to stage right.
Those who rode on it remember stepping inside the boat, taking off and looking down on the rushing river from above. Some people only know about the fair as an old story, but they're just curious.
The first group is Montonnaro. The shape of the pod evokes another memory of the fair. Visitors and fair officials from across the state have shared similar memories since curator Angela Cinquemano began soliciting photos and memorabilia in 2023.
Snapshots and fair memorabilia kept coming in, and Cinquemano combined some of them with his extensive collection of fair memorabilia and artifacts from his archives. The result is a mixture of factual history and memory.
Meanwhile, at the Old Parliament House, curator Lauren Davis has compiled a historical account of the fair's history from its inception to its financial loss after it ended.
“It was the first world's fair to lose money,” Davis said. “But times were different from the first World's Fair in the 1800s. In 1984, we didn't have the internet yet, but we did have television. And people watched what was featured at the fair on TV. I was able to.”
New Orleans also had boundary issues. The planners of such fairs always calculate the number of local visitors who are likely to come to the fair. The southern part of the New Orleans area fell into the Gulf of Mexico.
“I was told after the expo that they hadn't actually considered it,” Davis said. “Furthermore, Knoxville, Tennessee, hosted the World's Fair in 1982, just two years earlier, and many people who were supposed to come to New Orleans had already come to the Expo in Knoxville. I was there.”
Yet, as Cinquemano later points out, visitors were still able to experience the magic that these fairs produced. Visitors were guaranteed to see something new.
A new thing at one fair was an ice cream cone. The 1883 Chicago World's Fair had electricity and running water.
The Great Exhibition of Industrial Works held in 1851 at the Crystal Palace in London's Hyde Park marked the beginning of a series of world exhibitions. Archives exhibits include cases of postcards from expositions held in the United States and an original map of the 1884 Cotton Centennial Exposition in New Orleans.
Look out for the 100th anniversary of cotton. Exactly 100 years before the 1984 Louisiana World's Fair.
“All world's fairs have to be sanctioned by the World's Fair Secretariat. The International Bureau didn't sanction the New Orleans Cotton Centennial Celebration, but Congress did,” Cinquemano said. Ta. “So it was very legitimate and laid the foundation for Audubon Park.”
The 1984 World's Fair was the brainchild of Edward Stagg, executive director of the Louisiana Improvement Council. In the Old Capitol show is a framed portrait of Mr. Stagg, who from the 1960s wanted to hold a fair in New Orleans to revitalize the state's economy, which was reeling from the oil and gas slump of the mid-1970s. Photos are on display.
The Louisiana World's Fair opened on May 12, 1984 with the theme “A World of Rivers – Fresh Water as the Source of Life.” Surrounding it was a half-mile fiberglass wonder wall that many described as a static Mardi Gras parade.
In addition to the MART gondola lift, the space shuttle Enterprise was also on display at the fair. Six 10-car monorail trains. Aquacade with daily synchronized swimming shows. Italian village. Popular spots include the Japan, Korea, China, Oil, Women, and African American pavilions. antique carousel. And in the 12-story, 5,500-seat amphitheater designed by world-renowned architect Frank O. Gehry, visitors could watch concerts by the era's top musical artists.
The main attraction for many was the “Treasures of the Vatican” pavilion, which houses works by Raphael, El Greco, Caravaggio and Giotto.
“So Fulton Street Mall was the intersection of religion and piety and nightlife,” Cinquemano said. “What more is New Orleans? And of course, the main tourist attraction that everyone's mom in New Orleans had to go see, everyone says, is 'The Treasures of the Vatican.' This was his second Vatican pavilion in the history of the Universal Exposition. ”
The Vatican Pavilion was part of the 1964 New York Exposition, and Michelangelo's Pietà was on display.
“They brought it across the ocean. It was monumental,” Cinquemano said. “The work they brought into the pavilion here was also pretty monumental. Father Val McInnes, who was very influential in the Archdiocese of New Orleans, collected $20 million worth of sacred art. We have planned an exhibition of levers.”
But the archival Vatican portion of the show is just one of the show's most popular items. At the entrance, visitors will be greeted by costumes of the fair's official mascots, Seymour D. Fair and Al E. Gator, the pelicans.
Seymour made history by becoming the first official mascot of a World's Fair.
Finally, the numbered porcelain replicas of King Neptune and his mermaid companions at the fair's bridge gate create many memories for visitors. They were designed by the late Blaine Kahn, founder and owner of Mardi Gras World.
When the mermaid emerges from the water, Neptune rides the crocodile.
“When people think of the New Orleans World's Fair, this is one of the images that comes to mind,” Cinquemano said. “It was definitely one of the most photographed spots at the exhibition.”
The fair will only attract half of the estimated 14 million visitors. After the park closed, the attraction was dismantled and sold.
Still, as both Cinquemano and Davis pointed out, it remains a treasured event among Louisianans 40 years later.
evidence? Please take a look at the smiling faces in the photos submitted by visitors and listen to the conversations. Every story begins with “I remember…”.
In memory of the 1984 Louisiana World's Fair Through Dec. 20 at the Old Louisiana State Capitol, 100 North Blvd. Business hours are Tuesday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Admission is free. For more information, visit louisianaoldstatecapitol.org.
America's Last Fair: 1984 Louisiana World's Fair Through Dec. 13 at the Louisiana State Archives, 3851 Essen Lane. Business hours are Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is free. For more information, call (225) 922-1000.