CHICAGO _ Chicago will honor the World Series champion Cubs with a Friday "parade to stand the test of time," Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Thursday.
The mayor, speaking shortly before noon at an unrelated event, said the parade will be held "around this time." Specifics are being worked out "as we speak," he said.
He had no specifics on the route, telling reporters "just stand somewhere in the middle of the city and you'll see it."
"I just talked to Tom Ricketts. I talked to him yesterday a couple times, I talked to him this morning again," Emanuel said when asked about the parade. "I think all of us would just want 20 minutes of consistent sleep, then we're gonna _ Here's the thing: we're going to have a parade in Chicago that will stand the test of time. It will be a parade that 108 years have waited for. It will be a parade and a celebration that all of Chicago for 108 years in their mind's eye, have been envisioning. We're going to make it a reality in the city of Chicago."
Asked whether the Chicago River will be dyed blue, he said he would like to do that but wasn't certain if it would work. "I want to do a lot of things," Emanuel said.
The city had been planning to hold a parade Monday if the Cubs won Game 7, but the team asked to move it up to Friday, a City Hall source said. Baseball general managers will gather Monday in Scottsdale, Ariz. for four days of meetings.
The mayor's comments came at an unrelated economic development announcement on the South Side. Wearing a Cubs championship hat that he said he grabbed on the field during the celebration in Cleveland, Emanuel repeatedly pleaded for understanding, noting he only got 1{ hours of sleep after getting back to Chicago.
"Where am I, and how did I get here?" he joked at one point, adding that he forgot his kids' names at a parent-teacher conference at school Thursday.
