BURLINGTON, Vt. -
The Church Street Marketplace is full of eye-catching action, but a new installation is getting people to stop in their tracks and take a closer look.
"I want it for my house!" said Rodney Rose, a visitor from New Jersey.
It's a 124-foot by 16-foot mural covering the Marketplace Alleyway that leads to the parking garage.
"This is the entrance many people use to come onto the marketplace," said Becky Cassidy of the Church Street Marketplace.
"I started walking and it caught my eye and it's like people we know! This is really cool!" said Diane Choiniere of Burlington.
The piece called "Everyone Loves a Parade" was painted by Canadian muralist Pierre Hardy and depicts the evolution of Vermont's history.
"It sets a tone for the rest of the experience we offer on the marketplace," Cassidy said.
With Grand Master Samuel de Champlain leading the charge, the parade is chock full of everything from Burlingtonians to iconic figures of the past 400 years.
"There's so much history up here and people don't play it up enough and this is phenomenal," Rose said.
The Church Street Marketplace raised $100,000 to install this mural that will be here for the next 20 years. They estimate that 5 million people come to the marketplace each year, so that's a lot of eyes on Vermont's history.
"It's going to be great for teachers to bring their classes down," Cassidy said. "We'll have a key and a map to help people find things."
"It's just neat because this is Vermont, it's definitely Vermont," Choiniere said.
The enormous painting took a year to complete in a studio and was installed in panels-- all in time for the 30th celebration of the Church Street Marketplace.
The Church Street Marketplace took in applications from artists from all over the world and chose the Canadian artist because of his vision for the alley.
