One of the great avenues of the world is missing something. A red carpet.
Chicago’s Magnificent Mile has wonderful shopping, skyscrapers, historic buildings, and even horse carriages. But now imagine a mile long red carpet on the sidewalk. That would be so cool.
Currently there’s a little carpet in front of the Hotel Intercontinential’s doors on Michigan Avenue. I love walking across it every time I pass by the hotel. In fact, I make a point of walking on the carpet every time I go that direction.
An outdoor sidewalk carpet brings fluffy happy walking to all pedestrians. A mile-long carpet would establish the shopping district as top notch. The term “Magnificient MILE” would come absolutely true with a MILE-long carpet.
Yeah, so the carpet would get worn out every few months. Just replace it. You’ll only need 82 sheets of some outdoor carpet and that would cost about $30,000 (without bulk pricing) for a 12-foot wide by one-mile long carpet. The stores along this carpet would more than make up the profits due to the increase of people coming to “walk that famous red carpet.”
Tourists would come just to have their photo taken on the red carpet. People already walk up and down Michigan Avenue like it’s some sort of fashion catwalk. Now a red carpet only encourages that more.
Every year there could be an official fashion show up and down Michigan Avenue. Let viewers stand on the street and watch the models walk down the red carpet showing off the newest in fashion styles. The stores would love to have their storefront as the backdrop.
Chicago needs a mile-long carpet for its magnificent mile. Let’s call Empire today for carpet tomorrow. No Payments until January 2008!