Before snipping up that Bon credit card, take a moment. At least notice that 115 years of commerce have passed into history.
The Bon Marche was started by German immigrant Edward Nordhoff and his wife, Josephine, in 1890. With a tiny storefront where Seattle’s trendy types now drink and dine in Belltown, they founded a dry-goods store with their life savings – $1,200. It was one year after the city’s great fire.
According to historylink.org, an online encyclopedia of state history, in the 1900s the Bon Marche was the largest department store on the West Coast.
“Think about what’s in your back pocket today. It may be history for your children,” said Leonard Garfield, director of the Museum of History and Industry in Seattle.
Was I too hasty when I took scissors to my green Frederick &Nelson card when that once grand retailer quit business in 1992? A Bon-Macy’s card, in use only a year or so, doesn’t have the same cachet.
Bon stores assumed the Macy’s name last week. Since 1992, the Northwest retailer has been under the umbrella of Cincinnati-based Federated Department Stores Inc., parent company of Macy’s.
Does anybody care?
“A little bit, I think,” Garfield said.
However, the loss of the Bon is nothing like the demise of Frederick &Nelson.
“That was emotionally wrenching for Seattleites, when Frederick’s closed. With the Bon, it’s only changing its name. Macy’s is going to be sensitive, they have all the same people and traditions,” Garfield said.
The Museum of History and Industry has the vertical Bon Marche sign from the flagship Seattle store, built in 1929. Facing Westlake Center, that sign at Fourth Avenue and Pine Street was part of the cityscape.
At the museum in Seattle’s Montlake neighborhood, it will join other relics of Northwest business. The “R” from atop the old Rainier brewery now glows in the museum entryway. From Frederick &Nelson, the collection includes the “real” Santa’s suit, a doorman’s uniform and fine china from the tearoom.
Garfield’s mention of the tearoom stirred a childhood memory.
It was 1966, and I had taken my first plane ride from Spokane to Seattle to visit my aunt. My father’s twin sister took my cousin and me to the elegant Frederick’s tearoom. We watched a fashion show and sipped minty Frango milkshakes.
A dress-up tearoom is a thing of the past, as even upscale Nordstrom serves hot dogs to kids in its cafes. Retail today is all about the big box, from Target to Wal-Mart.
In Snohomish County, the Bon Marche was a latecomer.
Everett shoppers remember the Bon at Wetmore Avenue and California Street. That department store opened as Rumbaugh-MacLain in 1929 and didn’t become a Bon until 1949, said David Dilgard, history specialist at the Everett Public Library.
In the early 1970s, a second Snohomish County Bon store became an anchor at Everett Mall. The Bon was an anchor store at one of the nation’s first shopping malls, Northgate, built in 1949.
Not all Northwesterners will miss the Bon Marche. For Anna Lucas, going to Macy’s will be like going home. The Everett woman grew up on Long Island, N.Y.
“Coming from New York and knowing Macy’s very well, I’m not afraid of the name,” said Lucas, 72, who moved to Lake Stevens in 1941.
Her favorite Macy’s memories are of jewelry counters. “I remember walking down Fifth Avenue in New York, and my father could not get me past those jewelry stores. I was crazy about jewelry,” she said. “We’d get to Macy’s, and the costume jewelry took me by awe.”
Lucas has her own link to Northwest retail history. From 1963 through the late 1980s, she owned Herfy’s hamburger restaurants. At one time, she had eateries from Tacoma to Bellingham, with three in Everett.
“People are so tired of the big chains. They always ask, ‘Why don’t you open up another Herfy’s?’” she said.
Given another 50 years of life, she said she might consider it.
As for the wonderful Macy’s store of her childhood, she said when she took her husband, Bill, to see it, he wasn’t impressed.
“He was looking for a beautiful store, all glitzy,” Lucas said. “The front steps, all marble, are dented from the millions of people. Everything is old in New York. It was just an old store to him.
“To me, its deeply imbedded,” she said. “To go to Macy’s as a child was something great.”
No argument, the Macy’s name has its own mystique. There’s the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. There’s the classic Christmas movie “Miracle on 34th Street.” Macy’s is loaded with tradition.
The thing is, it’s not our tradition.
Columnist Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlsteinjulie@heraldnet.com.
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