Gateway District - Individual

Our journey was long and cold, but surprisingly fun. As you can see from Cindy's post, we ventured quite far. In addition to the areas surrounding the mall, we visited Old Greek Town, but didn't even know we were there until we saw the sign at the Trax stop. There is no longer any Greek cultural influence in this area. We also visited Japan Town, and the only cultural places were the Buddhist temple and the Japanese Church of Christ.

What surprised me about this area was how much it changed from one side of the street to the other. When we walked up 5th W, one side was undeveloped nothingness and the other side was the newly developed apartments and Gateway mall and when walking up 2nd S, one side had the Road Home and the other was the busy mall. Essentially, I had no previous knowledge about the area except for the mall and learned that there are a lot of cool places out there. This was my favorite walkabout so far and I would definitely go back to the area, especially between 2nd and 3rd south and 3rd and 4th west where there are some very cool buildings and places to eat.People used this place for many different purposes. 


The apartments near Gateway Mall and the strange Victorian style apartments on 3rd S were residential, and we walked by many businesses and offices. Many people work in this area or come here to eat dinner or shop. The space didn't encourage people to interact with each other outside of their own little groups, especially in the freezing cold. Within a group, however, the area encouraged interaction with its vast social and entertainment choices. The space itself was very people-friendly with it's work, entertainment, social, shopping and dining choices. On the south and west side of the mall there were several concert venues, but other than that was mostly empty space, run-down buildings, or abandoned warehouses and not much human interaction.


There were good examples edges, paths, landmarks and nodes in this district.The barriers of this district were 1-15, 4th S, the convention center and North Temple. The channels by which people moved along were the sidewalks and roads, which were used heavily.Some of the physical objects to use as a reference point were the Union Pacific and Rio Grande signs, especially with the water tower high above and very visible. There were a few areas of extra focus, such as the Gateway Mall itself and Pioneer Park. I felt so bad for the freezing Occupy Salt Lakers in their little tents in the cold wind.
Overall, I really liked this walkabout and am glad that I had the opportunity to explore a previously unfamiliar area of the city that ended up being very interesting.