Madonna and the Christ Child returns

The lighted Christmas display that adorned the corner of the old Bon Marché building for decades will shine on downtown Spokane this holiday season after a three-year absence. The 47-foot tall religious icon, Madonna and the Christ Child, will adorn the east face of the Cathedral Plaza, a 15-story residential tower at Sprague Avenue and Jefferson Street just west of downtown.

Section:Gallery

Mon., Nov. 4, 2019

Tad Delong of Baldwin Sign guides one of the last pieces into place as he helps to install the lighted Madonna and Christ Child Christmas display in 2014. The lighted display will be installed on the east face of the Cathedral Plaza apartments, 1120 W. Sprague Ave., this holiday season.

Jesse Tinsley The Spokesman-Review Buy this photo
Joel Baldwin, left, and Tad Delong of Baldwin Sign supervise as the last pieces are hoisted into place as they install the lighted Madonna and child Christmas decoration on the southwest corner of the Macy's department store building at Main Ave. and Wall St. Monday, Nov. 24, 2014. The lighted display, originally designed by Bob Graves, the Bon Marche display director, has been installed each year since 1957.

Jesse Tinsley The Spokesman-Review Buy this photo
The image of Mary and the Christ child has glowed on the corner of Main Ave. and Wall St. in Spokane since 1957, when the store was the Bon Marche. Photographed Monday, Dec. 9, 2013. Christmas decorations put up by retailers or retail groups have been a historical part of the downtown holiday scene. Wreaths, lighted silhouettes, painted windows and window displays at stores like the Bon Marche, the Crescent and other bygone businesses were traditional heralds of the coming holiday season. The Paulsen Medical and Dental building used to illuminate window lights in the shape of a giant cross. In 1956, the C.C. Anderson department store chain, based in Boise, completed a new 10-story building at Main Ave. and Wall St. in Spokane for their new store, called the Bon Marche after their Seattle store. And the store immediately commissioned a landmark holiday decoration which became the Madonna and Christ child simulated stained glass window for front of the store, which is now Macy’s. The 12’ by 48’ backlit painted plastic sign, built by Baldwin Sign Company, is lifted into position above the main entrance of the store every year around Thanksgiving since 1957. The design was changed, from a very traditional rendering to a modern, Cubist-influenced image in the 1960s. Baldwin updated the display by replacing some 500 incandescent bulbs with more than 1000 LED lights, cutting the operating cost by more than 90 percent, according to Joel Baldwin of Baldwin Sign, who’s been helping to install the sign since he was a teenager. The 1956 department store building was built to align with the adjacent Welch Building, built in 1914 on the corner of Main and Howard, and a unified facade was installed.d.

Jesse Tinsley The Spokesman-Review Buy this photo
2009-The Madonna on Macy's was created in 1957 and remodeled in 1973 is a holiday tradition in downtown Spokane.

Colin Mulvany The Spokesman-Review Buy this photo
1957-The Bon Marche lighted its Christmas Madonna, adding a dramatic note to the sparkling yule decorations filling Spokane, Wash. streets and stores. The "stained glass" Madonna and Child overlooks city streets dressed up to suggest the bright excitement which has come to be an annual message from merchants to area folks. At the right, a jolly Crescent Santa Claus looks down on glistening streets.

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