Jerry Large / Times staff columnist
Changes add up to different Seattle

JIM BATES / THE SEATTLE TIMES, 2002 What's in a name? Westfield Shoppingtown used to be Southcenter Mall; The Bon Marche will soon be Macy's.

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Bye-bye Bon Marche. We're sure to become New York, by and by, now that you've become our own Macy's.

Well, maybe we won't be New York, but a slightly different Seattle.

I read a story Tuesday that said the 50 Bon stores scattered around the Northwest will put up the Macy's sign in January. I felt a little nudge of the wistfulness that change can bring.

It's not a big deal to me the way the closing of Chubby and Tubby was, but it does mean something.

The store isn't going anywhere, and it has been part of the same chain (Federated Department Stores) for years. It's just getting a different set of letters on the front. But the Bon name is part of the bag of stuff that means Seattle to me.

Around here there is plenty of opportunity to feel that little twinge of loss, because things are always changing. The Boeing headquarters is gone, the Kingdome is history, the viaduct's days are growing short.

Miss Bud is through with hydro racing. The flag pavilion at Seattle Center is gone, making the place seem slightly less familiar.

Familiarity is the thing that gets lost even when things improve as a result of change. Movement is constant, but some things become anchors, and it can be disorienting when anchors move.

The Bon name change got me thinking about how much downtown Seattle has changed since I moved here 23 years ago. It is not the same downtown.

Frederick and Nelson's, I. Magnin, JC Penney, Woolworth are all gone. Nordstrom picked up and moved into Frederick and Nelson's building, and Westlake Center is new — well actually it's old, but it used to be one of the new things downtown.
 
In 23 years, all of the neighborhoods and suburbs have changed dramatically.

We still call it Seattle, but it isn't. Or, it is, but just a different Seattle.

I was looking through some old stories about downtown and came across one about the hole left when Frederick and Nelson's closed. Not the physical hole, but the gap in people's lives.

The story was mostly about older women who used to come downtown to eat at Frederick and Nelson's. The store was part of their lives and of other people's too. Frangos and visits to Santa — it was all a part of what made Seattle Seattle for them.

It was a big loss for many, but it isn't even part of Seattle for someone born in the 1990s, or for someone who moved here too late to bond with the store. I doubt my son would know what I was talking about if I mentioned F&N to him. His Seattle is a different place.

He doesn't like the name change at Southcenter, where the main mall is now Westfield Shoppingtown. It's part of an Australian corporation that owns centers around the world. Everyone I know still says they're going to Southcenter, and I suppose we'll keep calling The Bon, The Bon.

No one called the store Bon-Macy's during the year in which it has been saddled with that awful label.

The ability to link local identities with particular stores has been fading for a while anyway. Almost everything is part of a national chain. I just saw a story from Atlanta about Rich's department store, which has been an institution there for 140 years. It's becoming a Macy's, too, one of 184 regional stores around the country taking on the name.

The original Macy's still gives definition to New York City, even though it's now owned by a Cincinnati corporation. Things change even when names stay the same.

Fortunately, store names aren't the only things that set a place apart.

We still have parks and our natural setting, of course; Pike Place Market, the Locks and so on. But the city is creating new features that give it a distinctive and changing face. The new downtown library could become an identifying mark.

Did you ever think of the old library building when you conjured up an image of Seattle? Of course not. But the new one doesn't blend in; it helps give definition to the place.

We're always making new Seattles for the next generation to get attached to.

Jerry Large: 206-464-3346 or jlarge@seattletimes.com. More columns at www.seattletimes.com/columnists.