Mile 95.4 - LBD New Orleans Convention Center

95.4 LBD New Orleans Convention Center

This is the site of the crown jewel/dud of the now-infamous 1984 Louisiana World's Fair. A $10 million gondola was strung across the Mississippi river, bank to bank, from a pair of 320-foot towers. When Archbishop of New Orleans Philip Hannan went to bless the Gondola in the inaugural ride, his gondola car got stuck dangling above the river, 200 feet up in the sky. The gondola, which was supposed to have operated indefinitely as a famous attraction, lasted less than four months after the Fair. The Fair went on to lose more than $100 million, but New Orleanians remember it fondly. (Wolf E. Staudinger)