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It was.

It was our fair.

It might not have been a national fair.

Anything but it was.

New Orleans fair.

And every night I go drink a couple of cold beers and go to the German pavilion and did the chicken dance.

I rode the gondola.

Yes.

And I did not vomit at, Someone near me, I think was afraid they were going to and kept chugging Pepto-Bismol.

But, it wasn't a rough ride.

It was really splendid.

It's almost hard to get a bad view of this city, but that was really nice.

We really thought something was going to happen after that.

Said, it was such a, optimistic feeling.

The city has finally pulled itself up by its bootstraps, and we are going to really go places.

Right?

And, it was a magnificent illusion.

I had a season pass, and I just couldn't wait to see the fireworks.

I'd bring my children there sometimes, sometimes I'd just go because I had a hankering for that mango freeze.

The individual could see, wonderful swimming through the Aqua Kade.

Could ride a number of rides, could see the treasures of the Vatican.

You could find something to satisfy whatever taste you had.

I'm picky, Scott Laborde.

There were fireworks every evening.

There was music, food, exhibits, even an amusement park.

The spectacle lasted for six months.

But for the millions of folks who were there, the memories continue.

Most are fond, others bittersweet.

But they're all part of a World's Fair to remember.

Before the days of the internet, cable and satellite technology.

A world's fair was the place where inventions were unveiled and countries promoted themselves.

By the 1980s, that mission had changed.

The Louisiana World Exposition, or the World's Fair as it was known, was a fantasy land steeped in New Orleans culture and sprinkled with international flair.

World's fairs in the 80s and beyond were not showcase of technology.

They were showcases of the technology of show.

In other words, they were entertainment.

I'm in the business.

Engage, educate, entertain, enrich, empower through exciting and emotional experiences.

And that's what a world's fair is.

In New Orleans it was birds, balloons, fans, fireworks, flags and thousands.

It was a party.

It was fun.

Just as a fair had been held in New Orleans a century earlier to stimulate a significant army.

The 1984 fair had a similar objective.

The six month long event from mid-May to mid-November would take place along the city's Mississippi riverfront.

Just as many cities were looking at revitalizing their riverfront, it seemed like a great idea.

But with the location came challenges.

I think the goal was probably economic development.

On one side, improvement in the warehouse district, whether another one.

And I think some people were hoping they could make the money out of the ones that you're on the river, you've got old warehouses, you've got a railroad line, an active railroad line, you've got a high tension wires, you've got hazardous waste, you've got historic structures.

And then you had a lot of independent owners.

We had to negotiate leases, and each one was leveraging us, spearheading the concept of a fair.

Early on was civic leader Ed Stagg, considered by many to be the father of the World's Fair?

Stagg assembled a committee of businessmen to help plan the event.

He approached New Orleans developer Lester Cabochon.

Cabbie.

That's what they call my dad.

they've got this concept for a World's Fair.

I think it could help grow New Orleans.

We ought to do one.

My father was the sort of go to guy for ideas like that.

My assignment was to assemble with others, the 80 acres for the fair, and go visit property owners and suggest that, we didn't have a lot of money to pay them.

But if they put their property in for the six months of the World's Fair, it would get improved and then would revert back to them.

And afterwards, then they could sell it to a developer and change uses because that area of the city was declining.

Revitalize.

Transform, where coffee beans and bananas were once unloaded, would soon become a place where cappuccino and frozen banana desserts would be sold.

The look of the fair, divided into neighborhoods, would reflect the pastel colors of traditional New Orleans architecture.

Perez and associates would take the lead on the task of designing a city within a city.

I liked very much, that we had high brow, low brow, middle brow kind of stuff.

It had the character and spirit of Street Festival.

It was not of an elite museum kind of presentation.

And again, we went back to our original concept that it was a six month festival.

Getting ready for fair visitors meant hiring and training a staff of almost 6000.

Meeting the public involved more than putting on a happy face.

So it was all about really guest relations and being nice.

It was about wait staff not laughing at guests from out of state who did not know how to say treatment, and oftentimes would say things like trout manure.

So I would set up a scene where we would be in a restaurant.

I was the guest and I'm at and I come in and I sit down and I order myself a trout manure.

Okay.

Is that really the nicest thing to do to go?

Or should you instead say, oh, you know what, that's terrific.

It's a great dish.

We are very proud of our Trautman year here in New Orleans.

The World's Fair had two entrance gates.

The one under the Mississippi River bridge had a distinct tie to its location.

And nearby swamps.

Oh.

What else can you do?

Come on, give me a break.

Break?

Here in Louisiana.

What is he part of?

What we were going to say to the world, it had to be of the whole theme of the fair was water the source of life.

And and, what we did was we thought of the mighty Mississippi, one of the greatest rivers in the world.

And so we put Old Man River up there, and we put a water nymph in the river with him and gigantic alligators.

And it was a beautiful thing.

And, God, it broke my heart when we had to tear it down.

But the other entrance gate off Poitras Street was the one that created quite a stir.

Public nudity is hardly a novel concept in New Orleans, perhaps just not on such a grand scale.

Well, the reaction was just incredible that there was a Sunday supplement called Dixie Roto.

So this picture was published without the face, articulated without the hands articulated.

And the only thing on this upper section of the statue, articulated and finished, were the breasts.

And that was because we had ordered a whole series of ladders to help us with the work, and they hadn't been delivered yet, so I couldn't get up to the face and up to the hands and wanted to stay busy.

So here, with these two gigantic breasts, there was controversy surrounding the mermaids, and I remember thinking, what's the big deal?

You know, she lives underwater.

She's going to have certain things revealed.

So we were very serious about the artistic end of it.

So at no point where we going?

Well, you know, we're going to shock and offend people or we're going to do something for for a publicity stunt that was really never, never part of what we were thinking of.

Oh, yeah, I used to go by the mermaids and take pictures with the mermaids.

That was my favorite thing.

Take a picture with the mermaid, and sometimes I pretend I'm kissing them on the wonder wall, 11ft wide and a half mile long.

Became a fair landmark.

Heading the design team was nationally known architect Charles Moore, who a few years earlier achieved acclaim for the Piazza d'Italia, not far from the fair site.

The Wonder Wall was designed to camouflage the huge overhead power lines which ran down the middle of what is now Convention Center Boulevard, which was then South Front Street.

So it was a diversionary tactic, but it was marvelous because it was kind of like exploring caves or something, that there were jugglers and mimes tucked in.

There were little souvenir shops.

There were little places to sit and rest.

There were some fountains, which was really soothing.

The Wonder Wall was was full of surprises.

Not only was it whimsical to look at, but it delivered on that sense of playfulness that we sort of began inventing with Charles Moore's sort of leadership and brilliance, a notion that we could have this, 2 or 3000ft long frozen parade.

It's which is the way we began thinking about it and quickly, you know, we were saying, well, you know, but oh, you know, wonder what people would think about it.

And at one point, you know, someone spit out, well, it's a wonder wall.

They'll they'll just wonder what it is.

Well, opening day was, spectacular.

In fact, the memories that I have of opening day was a great crowd.

It was a beautiful day.

We chose to go to the top of the amphitheater on the river and off in the distance on the river was a big barge of, with a big blanket of balloons that rose up that spelled out the word welcome.

Fireworks.

Lots of entertainment was spectacular.

Peter Speroni declared the fair open, and Seymour the fair came down from the ceiling with a lot of fireworks, and things went off, and all of a sudden a curtain opened up and you could look out directly onto the river, and there were all types of boats tooting their horns.

Thousands of balloons went up into the air.

There was a fire boat sprinkling red, white and blue water on the river, so it was just the visual experience of it was was marvelous.

It was just happiness.

Just because, you know, like celebrating New Orleans and celebrating all these people coming to New Orleans to see this World's Fair.

And I remember all the talk about all the talk about, you know, it's not going to be ready on time.

And all I could think of was, it doesn't matter if it's not finished.

Let's just go and they can finish it while we're in there.

It was a great day.

I think at the time my my kids were small.

My middle son, John, who had been with me on many times of the fair site, loved the fair.

And when we got ready to go home about later in the evening, he broke into tears and said, but I haven't seen everything, and it never occurred to me to tell him that the fair was going to last more than one day.

184 days to be exact.

And it was no surprise that a fair fashioned after street festivals would include lots of entertainment, National and international headliners performed at the amphitheater, including Julio Iglesias, Tom Jones and Willie Nelson.

A stellar lineup had a stellar setting.

The initial design of the amphitheater came from internationally known architect Frank Geary, who was inspired by a glimpse at everyday activity on the riverfront.

I always just look around, see what what is already there.

That's nice and then try to work with that.

They have cranes along the river for loading stuff into the barges that are made of steel.

They're industrial and they're quite beautiful.

So I was looking at those when the canvas backdrop behind the stage was rolled up, the amphitheater became a frame for a 3D painting of the Mississippi.

My, fantasy at the time was the barge would come up and Frank Sinatra would get up and step on stage.

Sinatra never graced that.

The theater stage, but another legendary performer did Bob Hope with a national telecast of one of his comedy specials.

New Orleans I declare I like your bill affair.

And speaking of affair, the one you've got is beyond compare.

Dick Cavett was a guest on the show, and I got a child a really good not only childhood, but an adult dream come true of being to be being able to be in a sketch with Bob Hope.

He saw me doing a tap dance step and he said, hey, that's pretty good.

Where'd you grab that one?

And he asked me to show it to him, and he liked it.

And three weeks later a check arrived for I think it was $5,000 or something.

saying this might pay for 1 or 2 more tap lessons for you, Bob.

Another guest was an up and coming comedian named David Letterman.

Take the take him.

Take a good look at this one on on the left there.

Do you see anything that might be considered controversial?

I think that they must have been thinking about Dolly Parton.

For one New Orleans musician sitting in the amphitheater, audience was almost as much fun as performing.

And I saw Dionne Warwick there with, Henry Mancini orchestra just knocked me out.

I still have memories of her hitting that high note when she sang, I know I'll never Love This Way again.

Hold on.

And she changed keys and hit that no way up in the clouds and held it.

Oh, man, it's just me.

And I saw Johnny Mathis there.

Oh, Johnny Mathis was so cool.

We just came out there in the white pants and a blue blazer with an open collar, and he opened up with.

Begin the begin.

Oh, God, was he magnificent that night.

And later on, I got to play at the amphitheater.

I also played at, Pete Fountain's Reunion Hall.

I played at Sheila's.

I played on the Wonderwall.

I played in the jazz and gospel tent, and I was there almost every night.

The entertainment was a virtual smorgasbord.

I mean, there was so much and so much to choose from.

Every day.

We had nine stage that we programed 12 hours a day for 184 days.

So there was a lot of entertainment.

There were more than a thousand acts.

And part of that smorgasbord was an aqua cage show.

Inspired by the water ballets made popular at the 1939 New York World's Fair.

They were swimming around the pool in, side by side, sort of like the fighter jets.

When they doing an air show.

It was just crazy.

They would swim this way.

That's fun that way.

People were coming up the middle.

It was just incredible to see.

Choosing land over water was an oversize pelican named Seymour Day Fair.

The official fair mascot.

This roving ambassador couldn't help but stand out among the strolling entertainers at the Federal Fiber Mills building.

The Louisiana Folklife Festival Pavilion featured slices of the state's heritage and even a quilt from the 1884 World's Fair.

There were cooking and craft demonstrations, along with the construction of by You are Lagoon worthy Frogs and of course, there was music.

One of the things that I think, the Folklife Pavilion was able to do was bring in the culture from rural areas.

So from the Florida parishes, we had old time fiddlers that played with fiddle sticks, and we had, gospel singers.

And from over in French, Louisiana in particular, we tried to round up all the great Cajun and Creole musicians that we could get.

And, a lot of them played there.

I remember Rockin Gypsy was there, and Dennis McGee and I think Dewey Ball came and DL Maynard, and they had a wonderful lineup into the last few months of the fair.

When it became obvious that they weren't making the money they thought they were going to, they had to cancel a lot of the bands.

But when they canceled the bands, the staff people who had just been running the folk life area played on their own.

They formed their own band.

And in some ways that was even more authentic than bringing bands in, because it gave something of a feel of being on a back porch.

And repeat performances of a Cajun classic left a lasting mark.

Hey, we got a waltz for you!

This is one of the most requested waltzes here at the back door.

You get your pen ready to.

Up.

Head and everyone always played Shirley Blank.

And about two weeks into it, the sound check running the board in the in the hall realized, hey, I am going to hear Julie Ball an awful lot in the next six months.

And so he started notching this two by four, on the sound board.

And I think he notched like 248.

Julie Barnes in six months.

The Folklife Festival Pavilion also celebrated New Orleans culture and sounds.

One legendary local performer capped his career with a dramatic finish on the Pavilion stage.

Well, Tuts Washington is one of the great late piano professors of New Orleans.

One day just played and finished class and chord crescendo stood up from the piano, bowed to the audience and fell forward dead.

It's one of those moments where you just think this is the perfect musician's passage.

there's no infirmity here.

He's going out in style.

He had a grin on his face and people were applauding.

It's kind of one of those things that makes me recall that the Folk Life Pavilion really was a community, and in communities, people are born, they die, you know, they come of age and unfortunately, somebody died.

But I can't imagine better circumstances as far as being heralded.

As that I was right next door to the Mississippi Pavilion.

So I had to listen to that video.

I had to listen to the tape 15 minutes every 15 minutes, which meant every 15 minutes there, eight hours, 15 before I had to listen to it 32 times.

I heard it a thousand times and it would go out, and play, this then John James Earl Jones come out of the ooze.

She came out of the mud.

Mississippi, and they would start, they would go on for 15 minutes.

And, you know, the funny thing is, I hated it so much, I never went to see the Mississippi Pavilion.

It was right next door, you know, but a lot of fair visitors did.

Louisiana's neighbor put on daily craft demonstrations and music performances.

There were other states who had pavilions at the fair.

But what makes a world's fair?

World's fair is the participation of countries.

The U.S. pavilion was immediately recognizable by the space shuttle enterprise parked outside.

Viewers got a blast from the past from the pavilion's 3D movie, which necessitated wearing those awkward cardboard glasses.

The Canadian Pavilion showed an Imax film to promote its country, a Canadian innovation, Imax technology made its debut at the 1970 World's Fair in Osaka, Japan.

The Australia Pavilion hoped visitors would consider traveling Down Under.

A lot of people only can experience Australia when they go to international pavilions, since it's such a long ways away.

They have great style and they have a real commitment to using world's fairs and world expositions to showcase their country because they're so far removed.

Over at the Korea Pavilion, there were daily performances of traditional folk dances and a replica of an ancient Korean turtle ship.

The Japan Pavilion also featured performances.

The pavilions restaurant afforded some locals their first taste of sushi.

I think it was the first time that people in New Orleans got to taste sushi and, lots of, octopus.

I remember that.

I don't think there was a sushi restaurant in New Orleans yet.

It was way out in the sticks somewhere.

You know, the People's Republic of China pavilion seemed to be filled more with objects to buy than objects to educate.

There was a lot of buzz about the Chinese coming, because at that time China was still closed.

But, they had a lot of junk in the China pavilion.

But, you know, that was a Chinese pavilion.

Well, it was less of a pavilion and more of a way to, I think, sell Chinese, goods.

and it was quite popular.

I mean, it was always crowded.

One of the most unusual items at Peru's pavilion was a mummy.

You know, you hear about mummies and things like this, but to see something like a shrunken head up close and personal, slightly creepy.

But I kind of like archeological type things like that.

So 2000 years of religious art and other priceless treasures were on view at the Vatican Pavilion.

Included were works by El Greco, Raphael and other great masters.

We had a whole cross-section of works of art, from tapestries to paintings to, tomb plaques to early inscriptions, the whole sort of gamut of works of art.

They're contained in the Vatican Museums.

We did get the Caravaggio, The Disposition of Christ and the cross, and that was really the focus of the exhibition and probably the the best painting.

It was the insurance value.

And that alone was about, $15 million all.

Of course, the Vatican out.

That's completely different.

That really came through with the goods, that wonderful painting by of the, The Entombment of Christ by Caravaggio.

I mean, that's they kind of just brought that.

I remember going into those darkened rooms and seeing that painted painting that was the crown jewel of the entire family.

If you wanted to have some spiritual time, particularly in the madness of what we were going through, it was a nice place to be, to have some solitude, because they kept it very quiet.

They kept it as quiet as a church.

The docents there did a great job of doing that.

While father McGuinness was pleased with what he was ultimately able to borrow for the exhibit, the Vatican Pavilion narrowly missed obtaining the Shroud of Turin, believed by some Christians to be the burial garment of Jesus Christ.

The shroud.

We had permission for the loan, but again, because of politics, it had this bent ownership.

Had this been transferred to the Holy See, and they didn't want the risk of having it leave and come back and have a controversy about who owned it.

Instead, a photo exhibit of the shroud was displayed outside the pavilion in appreciation for generosity extended by the Pope.

It was only fitting that he be invited to New Orleans.

We had invited the Pope to come to the opening of the Vatican exhibition, but of course he was not able to do so.

But he said, I will come and then he did come, for his famous visit two years later, in addition to the Vatican Pavilion, fairgoers got a taste of Italy thanks to a New Orleans businessman with Italian roots.

I decided to build the largest exhibit in the World's Fair and show at least, 20,000ft was $1 million in rent.

And I sent my wife to Venice, and she picked a beautiful little village in Venice called Saint Filippo di Giacomo.

And I duplicated that particular section of Venice in New Orleans to to the team.

That was where I used to sneak pizza all the time, because, well, you know, parents are always concerned about what you eat and make sure you didn't eat a lot of fast food and everything, but I would sneak pizza.

And that was, that was good times for me.

There was an outside grill and it was Italian sausages, sweet peppers and onions, grilling at all times.

And I remember there was the atmosphere was very close and family like.

I remember I always saw people that I knew.

We had a lot of heart and soul.

I brought people from Italy every month.

When you were in the Italian village, I think you always felt like you were in a little village unit.

Another gathering place had a distinctly German accent and.

The German beer garden always had a band playing, invariably a Bavarian oompah pop band, occasionally a chicken dance.

In fact, actually, I think every third dance was a chicken dance.

Chicken dance, is a group of people pretending to be Bavarians and making absolute idiots out of themselves.

And I'm not going to demonstrate my age.

I have some some dignity to maintain that.

At that.

Dada dada dada dada dada dada dada dada dada.

They do their arms up and down.

Then they do like this, you know, it was the ultimate non dance dance, right?

But it was great.

When you have got you drunk about six huge liters of beer, you know, and eight and all hadn't eaten all that sausage and they get out there and sort of exercise the lower abdomen.

Right.

You get 1200 people in it.

and what was nice about it is that you get young children and then parents bringing their children, parents bringing their grandparents.

And so it was a cross-section of all ages enjoying the same event since we had the, the beer garden.

I felt partly responsible for introducing Jagermeister to the city, which is a drink that I enjoy.

I'll tell you what I don't think in my whole life I've been drunk once or twice, but I don't even remember getting home.

You bring in a Jagermeister, and I just put some beautiful new shoes and stuff dropped on my shoes.

Some of it ruined the shoes.

I.

While the Germans might have taught fairgoers a thing or two about how to party, there was no shortage of competing nightspots.

There was Jed's Look Out, a late night spot also within the federal Fiber Mills building.

Jed's lookout up upstairs.

we brought in entertainment of unusual sports.

World's fair brings people from all over the world.

And I got an opportunity to watch what they called the themselves.

The even sisters, two beautiful women who who, were, gymnast, gave me a, an early look at what has now become circus.

So they I did go to Jed's.

Look at I did go there and, yes, I, I occasionally, you know, drown my sorrows there and, celebrated the high points there and, had a good time there.

And a lot of people from the Folk Life Pavilion saw that as a little home away from home.

Pete Fountain's Reunion Hall was a place where you could get local dishes and lots of jazz.

Very popular was Sheila's Pub, where beers from Australia and other countries were on tap.

Located on Fulton Street, an entertainment strip on the grounds of the fair, Sheila's wooden kangaroo sculpture quickly became a fair favorite.

Dining at the fair presented a multitude of choices, including some dishes that were new to many locals.

I'd say, what is this, a Belgian waffle?

And I say, let me try.

you know, I said, wow, this is a lot of waffle for your money.

I mean, you got a big waffle as opposed to the traditional waffles.

We grew up on a waffle iron, you know, and, your mom used to make for you.

You get some bread, rabbit sirup and put on it.

My favorite were the petros.

That was the the bag of Fritos that, someone came up with the concept of turning them upside down, cutting the bottom off the bag, filling it with chili and lettuce and cut tomatoes and whipped cream.

sour cream and created this bag of food called Petros.

Just getting around the fairgrounds of 80 plus acres on foot could be quite the challenge.

There was the convenience of a monorail that provided an air conditioned overview as it snaked through the fair.

The Sky Transpo spanned the riverfront of international pavilions, but the most memorable mode of transportation for better or worse, was the Mississippi Aerial River transit, known as the gondola.

Oh, it was terrifying.

It was not.

It wasn't very pleasant at all, but it was a very subtle thing because there was no sound.

There was no noise.

It just sort of shuffled its way across, you know, and things sort of dangle like this.

And through your feet you could, you know, you could see all the water.

The gondola was incredibly scary.

It looked terribly under engineered.

It looked like two pencils with string in between with, with, bass baskets hanging from the string.

I kept looking at the thing and kept thinking why, they they really stiff a little more steel on this thing.

The basket itself had an open grated floor which didn't help matters at all when we got up.

When you get up to the top of the first, pole and you rolled over all those rollers, I thought, we're actually going to plummet to our deaths.

I was convinced of it.

I'm screaming at everyone.

Don't move.

You can look, but don't move.

I don't want you moving your eyes.

Just don't move.

I wrote that, but, I wrote it with the Archbishop at the time, I was Bishop Hand, and that's the only way I agreed to get on it.

I figured that if you don't pray for both of, And and then we made it over.

And believe it or not, we went across the river, we got on it, we wrote back, and, you know, two called after we got, it's that said, I went up right around the closing time of the fair when the fireworks were set off.

And so all of a sudden, we're up in this thing and like, incoming fireworks, you know, about ten yards, it seemed, from us.

Shells are exploding and little, little flaming arrows and sparks are flying all around us.

And it was kind of a weird experience to be over the Mississippi in a gondola with, with what appeared to be, you know, ground action shooting at us.

and I regret that that's not there anymore because I thought that was a tremendous thing.

And it was it was really exciting to ride in that.

According to gondola co-owner Blaine Kern, original design plans for the ride would have added an unexpected flair to the Mississippi River skyline on each pylon.

I was going to have King Kong on the West bank and Queen Kong on top on the east bank.

It was going to be called the Mardi Gras Gondola.

That was the idea.

Every call was going to be painted a different color with a different light in each car, and it was going to be like beads crossing the sky at night.

Water, water everywhere.

The official theme of the fair was a world of rivers.

Fresh water as a source of life.

The challenge was to interpret this concept in as many creative ways as possible.

In those early days, it seems somewhat esoteric about you know, a theme of water.

The the, the fragile nature of water and water is a diminishing resource.

But, in many ways, that theme was very, was very much a forecast of, of world conditions, because water now is a, is a major issue all over the all of the planet.

The fears water theme allowed for an outpouring of creativity.

There was an international sculpture competition, the Historic New Worlds Collection, a local research center, presented an exhibit called rain, which celebrated the city's dramatic downpours for children.

There was the Kid wash and the whimsical water garden.

The water garden was an oasis that summer because it was a New Orleans summer.

It was hot and at first, in the late springtime, it seemed like it was only the children who would actually run into the water.

But before long, and when it got to late June, July and August, we were all in the water.

It was so much fun.

I remember they had lagoons in the fair and in one of those lagoons you could actually, operate radio controlled sailboats, coin operated, radio controlled friends, and I would have regattas reconstructed at sea.

Battles never managed to sink one, though.

Docked in a fair lagoon was a tiny vessel with a big history.

The actual boat used in the Academy Award winning film African Queen on a visitors agenda, could be a stop at the petroleum industry's pavilion, which featured a 20 story functioning oil Derrick surrounded by a 50,000 gallon saltwater aquarium stocked with sharks, red fish and other creatures indigenous to the Gulf of Mexico.

Other water themed exhibits included the Army Corps of Engineers contribution to the fair on a vessel known as the Dredge Kennedy.

A small movie theater showed a film tracing the Mississippi River from its origins as a trickle in Itasca, Minnesota, to its final destination as it spills into the Gulf of Mexico.

While the dredge Kennedy never left the dock, visitors could take a boat ride inside the Great Hall known as the Louisiana Journey.

This early version of a virtual tour transported guests across the Louisiana landscape via the magic of visual and sound effects.

Also in the Great Hall was a wide variety of exhibits.

Preservation resource centers restored 1835.

Creole cottage that gave visitors a chance to appreciate the city's architectural heritage.

NBC affiliate WDSU TV built a mini television studio which broadcast their activities, and you couldn't miss Ochsner Pavilion's giant three story pumping Plastic Human Heart, the site of the fair's first aid station.

The exhibit, called I've Known Rivers, its title, borrowed from a Langston Hughes poem, depicted the history of slavery and focused on local black history artworks 84 showcased several Louisiana artists and provided them with their largest audience to date.

Next to the exhibit was a working artist space.

Anyway, I'm painting this picture at the fair and people could just walk right in, you know, I had all every Thelma paints and everything.

And so I used to take naps in my, my studio, you know, at home.

So I said, well, I'll just take a nap here.

So I just there's this platform.

Like I say, I just lie on the platform and fall asleep, and people would come in and see the the artist asleep, you know, and one day I was asleep and, and I was sort of half asleep, and I woke up and there was this fella right over me taking my picture.

Right.

And I kind of went up like this.

Like I dropped the camera.

World's fears have traditionally included an amusement park.

The Ferris wheel made its debut in 1893 at the Chicago Fair in New Orleans.

There was a German built Ferris wheel called the Giant Wheel, considered the tallest in America at 200ft.

I remember I got on the Ferris wheel one time and I made such a commotion, they had to stop the wheel and let me off.

I thought I was going to have a heart attack.

I was so scared.

I was cleaning it out and it's tough to ride and let me off and let my kids stay on.

Not going to be a black mark on the state.

These are private investors who own this facility.

We've kept it open through this point, and we'll keep it open through November the 11th.

And after that, then the bankruptcy courts will deal with the residual properties.

It's a sad, conclusion to, glorious undertaking, but, I think it's in the cards.

The Wonderland aspect of the New Orleans World's Fair faced harsh reality on the matter of finances, shifting priorities in the Reagan administration agenda resulted in the fair becoming the first event of its kind to be held without substantial support from the host country's government.

We not only didn't get any money, we had to pay for the U.S. Pavilion, we had to pay NASA to bring the shuttle in.

We had to pay the city to do sidewalks.

We had to pay for lighting in the French Quarter, all the things that normally would have been done through these federal programs.

The World's Fair was burdened with.

Another problem was that by 1984, World's Fairs had become too much of a good thing.

The big problem was that New Orleans had a great window, and for whatever reason, they lost the window and Knoxville came in and got the 1982 designation for World's Fair.

And New Orleans said, we'll defer to 84.

Then, unbeknownst to me later on, Canada decided to have a World's Fair in 1986, in Vancouver.

So now we're sandwiched between Knoxville and Vancouver.

And, you know, if you're sitting in Chicago and you're thinking about going to World's Fair, you got three that are in the process of being done.

So all of a sudden there were too many of these and they didn't have that unique place in time and so forth.

And I think the federal government realized, despite being handicapped by the lack of federal support, New Orleans forged ahead with the numbers crunching enthusiasm that, in retrospect, might have been misguided.

Every time there was a need to do another exhibit, to add something, they simply went back and raised the projection tions on how many people were going to end north.

And I've never understood to this day how the banks and all the people who would land in the money could accept the fact that it just kept going up on projects, and they kept giving them the money, and they kept building and building.

The concept of a World's Fair had long been supported by Governor Edwin Edwards and nurtured during Governor Dave Tree's tenure.

That support continued when average returned to office in 1984.

Support from the city of New Orleans consisted of a bond issue that provided $85 million for street improvements.

But while former New Orleans Mayor Moon Landrieu had been enthusiastic about the fair, his successor, Mayor Ernest Dutch Morial, didn't share that feeling.

That's where the kind of a stubborn kind of an individual, and if he had an idea about something, he felt he was right.

He was going to fight to the end.

I don't really thank you.

With and off there, I think it was at the time some of the fights that he had was gone through and dealing with some of the people who were promoting the fair and Fine to deal with some of the other issues.

And I think it got to be a point where where the friction came with his disagreement with them.

The city wasn't in a giving mode.

They were in a receiving mode.

They needed the fair to be the catalyst.

And without the federal government programs, they looked to us for the programs.

Another challenge for the fair was getting participation from more foreign countries.

A lot of other countries who would not come unless they were nudged, didn't get nudged by our, by our government.

And, you know, the president didn't show up for opening day.

And, historically, presidents had shown up for openings, the World's Fair.

So it sent a signal of, benign neglect, in my view, to, to a lot of the international community and to the corporate community.

A decision was made to give the media a sneak preview before the fierce official opening on May 12th.

It was a decision that fair officials would come to regret it.

I think that may have been a strategic mistake, but if I'm having a dinner party, I don't want the company to come an hour before I'm ready for them.

If I tell people to come at 7:00 and they show up at six, they're going to catch me.

And, you know, my robe, I'm going to be flying around.

I'm going to be doing all my last minute hustling.

That's not the way I want to appear to my company.

And unfortunately, the press was there to observe it, and they took the view that it just showed that we were, we were not going to be ready.

We were ready.

I mean, the fact is we were ready the next day, but the the national and international press had already written their stories, and it was only a six month party.

Just a few weeks after opening day, the city of New Orleans put a line on the fares bank accounts due to nonpayment of sales taxes.

Legally, we had discussed as to when do the taxes that are on the tickets get paid to the city, and the lawyers had said they don't get paid when the tickets bought.

They get paid when the tickets used.

And the city didn't agree with that.

So shortly after the fair opened, the mayor cleaned our bank accounts, which meant he sees them and we had checks out.

But the word went out nationally that the fair was in trouble.

So if you're somebody and in Washington, DC and you're coming to the fair, you say, well, I'm not going there may not be open two months, then you can see that the tenants figures were down.

It wasn't getting any better, was going to probably get worse before I got better.

We're getting into the heat of the summer, and it was going to probably drop off a little bit.

We'd had bad press kind of going into it and it kind of stuck with us.

The further you got away from New Orleans, the less likely people were to separate these financial issues with the fact that there was really a great show going on.

Petersburg experienced that perception firsthand.

To cope with the stress of the fair's financial woes, his wife insisted he take a brief vacation.

It was it was it was tough and it was hard sleeping at night.

I hated to read the paper in the morning.

I hated to to turn on the radio.

One thirsty?

my wife showed up with the suitcases and she said, we're out of here.

I got in their plane.

I had no idea where I was going, and I ended up, in Florida on a cruise ship.

But the second day I was there, I went down to dinner and, the next table was talking about this great World's Fair in New Orleans.

But there were financial problems and they weren't going to go.

And all of a sudden I said, now I know why I've got problems back there.

With lack of government and corporate support, good box office was essential.

But instead of the anticipated 12 million visitors, the final tally was a little over 7 million.

People say you go to New Orleans or you come to New Orleans, or you set up something wrong.

People don't automatically show up and today we know that that did not happen.

It was a great faith, but we didn't do all the things I think locally we could have done to make it a success and get more people to do the research that I did, and that we did showed that 9 million people would come to New Orleans in 1984, with or without a World's Fair after the fair, because there were lawsuits that the Harrison Price Company was hired to go back and verify that 9 million number.

And when they checked it out, it was really 4.5 million.

The tourist people in Louisiana had inflated the number of visits to the state.

It was an erroneous number.

And I've subsequently found out most states do that, as it soon became apparent that the fair would need to reduce expenses, many employees would have to be let go.

I was faced with a pretty hard decision, which was to literally let the rest of the staff go, which would leave us without any host and hostesses.

I made them perhaps feel a foolish decision to offer to take my salary as well.

If I could save some of the other host and hostess positions.

well, they took me up on that.

So the last five weeks or so, I worked without a without a paycheck.

Goodbye, dear.

Fair.

Goodbye, Seymour.

Good night to all of you.

And thank you for making the fair a world event of such success.

Closing ceremonies were held on November 11th because of the fair's financial problems.

The event was funded by private donations.

It was a sad night because really the locals, we did not want to see it in.

It had been a success as far as we were concerned, and we were sorry to see it in, and it meant that we, and since I sort of had to find another form of entertainment, we had really gotten spoiled going there on a regular basis.

On the last day of the fair, I cried and everyone said, why are you crying?

And I said, oh, because it was so beautiful and it was so wonderful, and it was so temporary.

And at the time, the most important thing to me was being a cheerleader and making good grades.

And yet here were people who were coming all the way from Africa and Asia to participate in this fantastic thing that was the World's Fair.

By the time we got to the close, it was so much of a disappointment to me in terms of hear this great faith that we had in the state of New Orleans, and I knew at that point it had not been a success.

And I knew at that point there were so many people that I have known for a lot of years that had lost a great deal of money in that fair.

So it really was just not a fun time for me.

When the fair closed down sales figures for Mitchell Osborne's World's Fair, guidebooks dramatically illustrate the toll taken by attendance projections that the event did not meet the print of 200,000. we had the ability to go back late in the cycle to get to print more, but we'd print a 200,000, and of that we sold 75,000.

And what happened to 125,000?

They went to the dump.

The, the investors that were in my group, lost some money quite a bit of money.

I didn't make, the money that I thought I could make, you know, we were able to pay our bills, and that was about it.

We lost.

In fact, I lost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Like, a lot of people lost a lot of money.

But as I said, it really was a labor of love.

I wanted it to look good.

And I just even I just sort of suspected that was going to even happen.

But I knew once I started, I'm the type of individual I can't do anything halfway.

It had to look just so it went into the whole bankruptcy proceedings afterwards.

And I remember receiving a check about a year and a half later, when the bankruptcy ended.

And they, they paid out all the unsecured creditors, which apparently I became, and my last five weeks or so of salary equated to $1.84.

And I've kept that check to this very day.

I did not I did not, cash that check.

I have it framed in my office as a good memory because it was, it was part of the blood, sweat and tears that, that we all put in, really, the smaller operators, the mom and pop operators, and some of the people that were left as unsecured creditors.

Those were some very difficult times for those families and individuals and smaller businesses.

and they were unwitting contributors to the development of the riverfront, that people were owed money.

You know, it's been with me forever.

And there were people who suffered consequences which they shouldn't.

And it was just beyond our power.

There were just too many forces.

The holes wasn't the sum of its part.

Fair president and general manager Peter Speroni bore the brunt of legal action.

I was personally sued, for over $100 million, 20 lawsuits, and, I stayed.

I felt a responsibility to see it through.

I got to know the process server personally.

Came every Wednesday and, it's something that was very, very difficult, very emotional.

But it worked out, about three years after the fair in late 87, I guess, I was in Paris, on a project I had called my wife and, she said, oh, the last lawsuit has been settled and it's over.

And I said, you're you're certain?

She said, yes.

She said, it's over.

And we have won every lawsuit.

And I really emotionally had a difficult time.

I spent that night walking the city of Paris because it was finally over.

The fair was not a disaster for all local businesses.

However, Earl Bernard and Pam Faulkner managed to carve out their own corner of Paradise.

It was called Tropical Paradise and it was fresh, daiquiris made with fresh fruit and ice cream.

And, I mean, it was a delicious product.

We made them in, blenders.

So the people, stood there and watched us, make the dregs.

We had all the fresh fruit piled up, you know, on displays.

And it was just really appealing.

We had sound effects with jungle birds, and, you know, it was.

It was a real happy sight.

You had a bartender on each side of you, and it was kind of a fun thing to see what interaction we could do quickly, because the drinks were made quick and the blenders and of course we were getting tips.

It was a fun thing and we would tell them stories.

Oh, the Marguerite is good for you because it'll keep you from getting scurvy.

Strawberry daiquiri is good for you because it's got fruit in it.

It's fresh, and we would just go on and on and interact with the people.

So it was a lot of fun and we did make some money.

We didn't make a fortune, but we paid all of our debts and came out with, you know, a little bit of money left over enough to get started in our new adventure.

That new adventure led Earl Bernard and Pam Faulkner to the French Quarter, where they parlayed their World's Fair profits into what is now a thriving four bar and restaurant mini empire.

And what about the fair's legacy?

In 1983, several major hotels opened in downtown New Orleans, anticipating a flurry of fair visitors and a hoped for boost and tourism.

What's interesting about the World's Fair is that, it was considered a disaster at the box office, but a tremendous success in urban renewal.

The opposite in Knoxville.

Knoxville did not end up changing that city.

The World's Fair left a legacy of the Warehouse district, which was developed during a time when New Orleans was in a terrible recession.

Perhaps a depression.

That area has turned out to be a residential, entertainment, arts office, restaurant, neighborhood hood that is really one of the best examples of urban revitalization in the United States.

When you look at the photographs of what that site 83 acres of what that looked like before the World's Fair, there were old metal sheds all along the riverfront.

You had no views out to the river.

You know, you could see the top of a ship drive by, but you never really had any vistas.

Now it's clearly a lively neighborhood and doesn't seem at all removed from the mainstream of downtown.

Part of the fair's legacy includes the Riverwalk Festival Marketplace, a shopping center where the Vatican Pavilion stood, is now the site of a Holiday Inn, one of several hotels that have since been constructed near the ever expanding Morial Convention Center.

First used as the Great Hall during the fair.

Without the convention center, you could not have had the faith because and it just happened that they came kind of at the same, the ideas came at the same time.

The food from the state, the bill, the first phase of the convention center was there.

So it became a part of the World's Fair because we needed that for the Lutheran exhibit and other things that were going on.

And so they became hand in hand without one, you really couldn't have done the when you look at it 20 years later, you're no longer totally dependent on petroleum.

Offshore, you've got a terrific tourism industry.

So the World's Fair has a lot of great things as it's residual and in the heart of a lot of people that participated in it.

Even though there was trauma, I think there was a lot of joy around New Orleans.

There are still some reminders of the fair.

Leaves from the Wonder Wall adorn the back of this home on Bayou Saint John, and there are other vestiges of the fair that continue to be used in unexpected ways.

There was beautiful big urns and all sorts of things, and they've been used in Mardi Gras there when they did help Mardi Gras, because all those beautiful embellishments have served well over the years for the Mardi Gras parades that I decorate.

A sculpture depicting Jesus with the women at the well by noted artist Ivan Mestre Vick, which had been a part of the Vatican Pavilion, is now located in front of Notre Dame Seminary.

Two of the winners of the fair's International Water Sculpture competition can be seen in downtown New Orleans.

A little known legacy of the fair is the French Quarter Festival, originally planned as an appeasement to French Quarter merchants who endured the many months of torn up sidewalks and streets in anticipation of the fair.

The festival has become a major annual event, and according to Peter Hagan, there's another residual an intangible one.

The World's Fair brought community spirit to New Orleans.

Like sometimes you have with your school football team, your hometown teams and the memories of that very beautiful thing that was part of our lives for six months.

The World's Fair was sort of a perfect New Orleans experience.

Some people lost money and didn't live up to all of its economic promise.

But it was a wonderful party, and I hope by 2084 they remember the party and do it again.

My piece of the World's Fair is is my home.

Moth and I built a home in the federal fiber mills, and, we have pictures of the World's Fair on the walls.

And I also had the stained glass doors made in a wonder wall, stained glass scene.

And in my home.

And the keychain I bought from the Mexico Pavilion, and it just says Mexico on it and cost me $0.45.

And I still use it to this day, and I can't let go of it.

I can't throw it away because that would be my last vestige of the fair gone.

Personal souvenirs I think I was down to one lapel pin and a whiskey glass.

Basically, it's just sitting on the shelf gathering dust with all the other stuff is at this point, I suppose.

Other than that, you know, what have I got?

I got the memories of the place and all the people and.

I have one, Metal wonder wool leaf.

And it's a very nostalgic piece for me.

I would I would not mind having many of them.

I think that they were they were beautiful.

And it reminds me of a very happy times.

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