The Macy’s Pink Pig train ride, an Atlanta holiday tradition for children dating back 65 years, returns to the department store’s Lenox Square mall location on Nov. 3.
The holiday ride began in 1953 as a pig-shaped monorail ride, dubbed “Priscilla,” that ran inside the now-shuttered Rich’s department store downtown. A second pig vehicle named Percival was later added. The ride eventually moved to a holiday festival elsewhere and stopped altogether in the mid-1990s. The original Priscilla is now in the collection of the Atlanta History Center in Buckhead.
In 2003, Macy’s Lenox Square revived the Pink Pig as a train, also named Priscilla, that runs on the floor under a huge tent decorated in a 1950s holiday style. Part of the ride’s ticket price is donated to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, whose hospitals include Scottish Rite in Sandy Springs and a new complex being built in Brookhaven. Macy’s says its ride has donated more than $850,000 to CHOA so far.
This year, the Pink Pig grand opening will be Saturday, Nov. 3 at 10 a.m., with the first 100 ticket-buyers receiving a gift bag and gift card. The Pink Pig will run through Jan. 6.
Tickets are $3 for a single ride; $5.50 for two rides; and $7.50 for three rides. Lenox Square mall is located at 3393 Peachtree Road N.E. in Buckhead.