Celebrate the future

It’s enough to make you yearn for a fur wrap, Marcel wave and Packard automobile.

The 76-year-old Fox Theater reopened in downtown Spokane this weekend with a spectacular $31 million transformation. This art deco treasure evokes the style and grandeur of Spokane’s past while symbolizing renewed optimism for this city’s future.

Now the home of the Spokane Symphony, the Martin Woldson Theater at the Fox deserves all the fanfare and celebration that surrounds it this weekend.

Harlow Gibbon was 11 years old on the Fox’s first opening night Sept. 3, 1931. He and his parents joined the thousands of people thronged in the streets outside the theater for that event. He still remembers the thrill of watching movie stars climb out of the men’s bathroom window to step out on top of the theater marquee and wave to the crowd.

When Gibbon was 19, he worked as a doorman at the Fox, where his first night on the job “Gone with the Wind” opened. Years later, during his long career in the automobile business, he was heartbroken to view the wreck the old theater had become. Its stunning décor was hidden behind layers of paint and decades of cigarette smoke and popcorn grease.

Now 87 years old, Gibbon was thrilled last week to make plans to step back into the restored theater.

There, contractors, paint restorers and other workers have updated the design of the theater and brought back its original sparkle. The seafern lobby murals, in shades of blue, green, gold and silver lead the way into the burnished golds, bronzes and coppers of the theater interior. The Fox’s signature piece, a 60-foot lighted sunburst, extends across the ceiling. A galaxy of star-shaped mirrors and light fixtures shines over the balcony.

Today, the theater will be open to the public for free tours and entertainment beginning at noon and concluding with a 7 p.m. finale by the Spokane Symphony Orchestra. It will be the perfect day to celebrate the way the community came together to help restore the Fox. The gifts ranged from Myrtle Woldson’s $3 million in honor of her railroad contractor father to hundreds of small cash donations.

This weekend, the theater joins other downtown Spokane landmarks, including the Davenport Hotel, Lewis and Clark High School, the Steam Plant and the Bing Crosby Theater, in showcasing Spokane’s architectural heritage.

The lights dimmed in this city for awhile. The skylight at the Davenport Hotel was painted over during World War II’s blackout period. The Fox’s sunburst gathered dust. But now, light not only streams back into the lobby of the Davenport, it splashes down once again from the ceiling of the Fox.

All that radiance will enhance the cultural and economic growing conditions in downtown Spokane for years to come.