Magic Carpet

 

 So the airport Red Carpet Hotel in Milwaukee has closed and everything is for sale before the demolition teams come in to erase this landmark from Milwaukee's memory. The one remaining business in the complex is Katie's former employer Magic Carpet Travel. They will be housed in a temporary trailer while the site is redeveloped into a strip mall and parking for the airport. The strip mall will include travel related businesses like a pet boarding store, and a car rental, and travel agents, etc. Side note: Pete and Katie were unable to meet Sue and I in China in the spring of 1999 because Richard, the owner of the travel store was about to have a baby. Richard's child must be about 14 years old now. Time flies when you have access to a magic carpet.

 

 

This is the central courtyard of the Red Carpet Hotel (most recently run by the bank as a Wyndham Resort.)

 

 

In the employee break room we found evidence of one final potluck that no one thought they needed to clean up. The hotel closed at the end of December. 

 

 

All of the equipment is for sale including, freezers, dish washing machines, pots, pans, glasses, linens, beds, sconces, etc.

 

 

Pete was sure if you made an offer on a hunk of wall, they'd sell it to you.

 

 

This is one of the grand ballrooms. I'm pretty sure I've been to some wedding receptions here. I think sister Cheryl worked as a maid here briefly in the early 1990s and brother Mike worked at the long-defunct Red Carpet Lanes bowling alley behind the hotel.

 

 

$225 for a four hole sink from the men's room. Pricey? Maybe.

 

 

Here is the signature architectural detail--the scalloped roof line with some pretty nice wood ceilings.

 

 

There are rumors that the developer will keep one of the 5 story rectangular "towers" and the central lobby area to be used in the new development. 

 

 

Over the past few weeks, during the walk through sale, it looks like folks have rifled through the desks looking for anything of value. There were work schedules posted on the wall from 12/2012 with phone numbers listed. If your business suddenly closed, you'd probably take your personal things and leave the rest for the scavengers. There were lots of computer monitors from the late 1980s that probably contain oodles of contaminating metallic waste. I hope they dispose of things properly.

*****

So long Red Carpet Hotel, hello more strips malls and surface parking.