The Portland Exposition Building (or Expo as it is known locally), is a sports and exhibition venue in located in Portland, Maine. Currently, it is the site of Portland High School home basketball games, and high-school and middle-school indoor track meets. The Expo has recently become the home of Maine Roller Derby (2007) and the Maine Red Claws, an NBA Development League team. The main arena currently has 3,100 seats, making it one of the smallest to house an NBA-D League team.
The building was designed by Fredrick A. Thompson, and is the second oldest arena in continuous operation in the United States (behind Matthews Arena in Boston, Massachusetts). Locker rooms for Fitzpatrick Stadium, the visiting clubhouse for Hadlock Field as well as the Portland High School locker rooms are located downstairs.
Built in 1914, at a cost of $80,944, the Portland Exposition Building was considered a sophisticated facility sure to "put Portland on the map." Its grand opening — a major agricultural show on June 7, 1915 — was so captivating, the local daily newspaper dedicated the entire front page to covering the event. In addition to the cavernous first floor arena, the basement level featured the Cafe Dumont. "The Cafe D" was a full service nightspot that offered "Top international entertainment in a classy nightclub atmosphere."
Since 1914, many famous figures have appeared at the Expo including Babe Ruth, Rudolph Valentino, Rocky Marciano, President John F. Kennedy, President Barack Obama and Paavo Nurmi. The arena has also hosted significant performances including the first East Coast concert of the Beach Boys (1963), James Brown, Dolly Parton, Janis Joplin, the Sixtieth Anniversary Ball of the Portland Symphony Orchestra, world championship kickboxing, and gala banquets for the Senior's Pro Golf Tournaments featuring Arnold Palmer and Gary Player.
Home to over 270 events per year, the Portland Exposition Building hosts trade shows, concerts, sporting events, conferences, civic meetings, brew fests, High school indoor track meets, ski shows and other special events. Nearly 600,000 patrons pass through the Expo's turnstile each year. Bordered by the Portland Ice Arena on the right and Hadlock Field on its left, the Portland Exposition Building is the original centerpiece of the modern sports complex on Park Avenue.
In September 2007, Maine Roller Derby began hosting flat-track roller derby bouts, with opponents traveling from Montreal, Ohio, New Jersey, New York, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut. The season runs from late April through November, with most bouts occurring April - June.
In 2008, a group of local businesspeople signed a deal to bring a NBA Development League team to the Portland Exposition Building as well as to renovate the arena's facilities. That deal was confirmed, and the Expo Building is home to the Maine Red Claws, beginning play for the 2009–10 season.
Famous quotes containing the words portland, exposition and/or building:
“It is said that a carpenter building a summer hotel here ... declared that one very clear day he picked out a ship coming into Portland Harbor and could distinctly see that its cargo was West Indian rum. A county historian avers that it was probably an optical delusion, the result of looking so often through a glass in common use in those days.”
—For the State of New Hampshire, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Hard times accounted in large part for the fact that the exposition was a financial disappointment in its first year, but Sally Rand and her fan dancers accomplished what applied science had failed to do, and the exposition closed in 1934 with a net profit, which was donated to participating cultural institutions, excluding Sally Rand.”
—For the State of Illinois, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight.”
—Robertson Davies (b. 1913)