kiddieland

Crain’s announced today that instead of the 80-year old one-of-a-kind Kiddieland amusement park at First and North Avenues in the near western suburbs, we will have the region’s 13th Costco. This is a good deal for the people who own the site, and no one else. Costco could have replaced the truck driving school across North Avenue or been part of a county land swap across First Avenue if clever people had been involved.

This is one of the antique carousels that will be auctioned off in late November. I grew up going to this place and so did my kids, although their experience there is now over. The place was quaint, small rides in many cases, many of them still working decades after they were built. The roller coaster was beautifully old and rickety and wooden and I still loved it and it still made my stomach drop.

But the comments section in the Crain’s article included those of several Costco enthusiasts who are presumably happy they won’t have drive 20 miles to the supersaving superstore that offers a super selection of Chinese products and other items all planed trained and trucked in from 7,000 to 10,000 miles away. So, to give the enthusiasts their due, I am trying to see how we can replicate the Kiddieland experience at Costco in the future.

First, there is of course the initial Costco experience, the parking lot:

Then there will be the joy of turnstile and checkout lines

And the endless train of soul-satisfying consumer products:

and most of all, the opportunity to do it over and over again, because what goes around….

Advertisement

Tags: Costco, kiddieland