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.

Gateway District - Individual Post

Our group's walk about from this week was to The Gateway and the surrounding areas. This was the first time that I had ever explored that area of town by foot. Look at the map of our route below!


What surprised me the most about the area was the amount of historical sites. I have been to the Old Greek Town Trax station before to go to concerts at In The Venue, but I had never taken the time to look at the other buildings in that area. On the north side of 200 S, across from In The Venue, we saw the Central Warehouse Building. In its prime the building was used for storage while the railroad district of Salt Lake City was still being developed. Now, it is just a decrepit old building with a plaque, nevertheless it was still very interesting. I learned that the area that we explored used to be the railroad hub of Salt Lake. It was also very interesting to see what was left of Old Greek Town because there definitely is no evidence that Greeks used to live there besides the name of the Trax Station. We had a similar experience when we went to Japan Town. The only thing left was a Japanese Church of Christ and a Buddhist Temple.

The space was mostly used by commercial businesses. In the past, the area may have been used for agricultural business and transportation, but now it s definitely a place for entertainment. In one condensed area there is The Gateway Mall, Energy Solutions Arena, several smaller concert venues and Abravanel Hall. The area encouraged human interaction because there were several places where people could gather and have fun. It isn't necessarily a place where you go to meet new people, but it is a place where you go to have fun with a group of people you already know.

In this district there were definitely examples of nodes, edges, pathways and landmarks. Some examples of nodes were The Gateway Mall and Pioneer Park. They are examples of nodes because they are areas that serve a functional purpose. The mall is an area of entertainment and business and the park is a place of relaxation and recreation. There were several physical barriers that acted as edges. I-15 was a giant freeway that made a distinct edge. Other major streets that acted as edges were North Temple and 400 S. The edge to the east was actually a building. The Salt Lake Convention Center was so large that it pretty impeded my vision of anything else that was east. The pathways we took were the sidewalks and streets. Some interesting landmarks of the area were the Union Pacific sign, Greek Orthodox Church and the Rio Grande water tower and sign.

Overall, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this area. Before this trip I was used to just driving to The Gateway, parking and going shopping. I had never really taken the time to see the surrounding areas or see the restaurant district just east of The Gateway.

Individual Post 1

For the “Devils in the details” walkabout, my group went to Federal Heights. I have lived in Utah pretty much my whole life but I have never spent much time in Salt Lake, and I had no idea that there are so many interesting places here. When we first arrived I could quickly see it is a very wealthy neighborhood. In the area where I grew up there are not very many old or interesting houses, and all of the wealthy people live in very big, extravagant, new houses. I was pleasantly surprised to see that many of the houses in this neighborhood were not in fact new or ornate in the sense I was expecting. The houses all had history behind their design and structure and yet it was still apparent that they were owned by the wealthiest and flashiest home owners, just like Martha Bradley mentioned in her lecture, the rich like to show off their wealth in their homes.

Unlike the previous walkabouts we have been on, this place, although public, seemed very private and peaceful. When we first arrived we met a woman and asked questions about her house and the neighborhood in general. She was very welcoming and enthusiastic to share her knowledge and help us make the most of our experience. However, as nice as that woman was, she was the only one to acknowledge our presence and interact with us. As beautiful as the neighborhood was, I did not get the sense that much human to human interaction occurs there. We were walking around at about five o’clock, when everyone was returning home from work, and we didn’t see anyone talking to their neighbors or out getting the mail. It seemed like pretty much everyone pulled into their driveway, went inside, and did not even pay notice to us walking around and taking pictures. There was even a father and his two children who pulled into their driveway right in front of us, then looked directly at us and walked straight into their house without saying a word or even nodding a head. On the other hand, the pure esthetic of the neighborhood made it a very inviting and interesting place. Everyone in our group was drawn to the beauty of each house and we could have kept walking around for hours because there was so much to see, so in that sense the space in itself seemed to encourage human interaction.

Since this walkabout was not so much related to our text, I used my notes from Martha Bradley’s lecture to interpret what I saw. In relation to the mass of the homes, I noticed that many of them looked more moderate from the front, but when seen from the side, I realized that most of the homes were actually quite large. The plan of the homes was harder to tell since we did not go in any of them, but from the outside, they seemed to have a more concise planned out design, rather than a large and sprawling layout. The details were very prominent on these houses. I would describe most of the houses as colonial style; so, many of the details were in the geometric shapes and the windows and borders of the houses. The placement of the details also seemed to be very well thought out and symmetrical. As for the ambiance of the neighborhood, it felt kind of elitist and fancy. We discussed as a group how it felt like the home owners did not want to acknowledge or interact with us, even when they were looking at us through a window as we stood in front of their house. At the same time the historical mood made it exciting and very interesting to learn about.

Going back to the details, some of the more specific things I noticed were that most of the houses were close to the street, and only a few had large front yards or long driveways where the house was not visible. I also noticed that most of the houses were natural colors like brown or beige and they were primarily built out of brick and in some cases stucco. In following with the colonial style, most of them had a lot of windows that were very symmetrical and ornate, with shutters and interesting shapes. The roof pitches on most of the houses were ordinary, but a few had multiple pitches like the Victorian style, especially the ones that had been added onto. Going into more detail on the outside, I noticed a lot of the homes had quoins and a few had turrets, and cupolas. There were also a few houses that mimicked the Elizabethan style with the brown and white wood look, and the overhangs. As for the landscaping, all of the houses had very well cared for lawns and very fancy shrubbery. I noticed that there were many old trees, I especially liked that they seemed to line every street we went down. I also thought it was interesting that they had post street lamps instead of the generic ones. It really added to the historical feel of the neighborhood. There were also a lot of wrought iron fences and gates which helped establish the feeling of privacy. The driveways here often just two strips of pavement, instead of being completely filled in, and behind some of the houses there was a small ally which we incurred was for the garbage access. Overall, Federal Heights is a very interesting and beautiful neighborhood, and it was my favorite walkabout so far. There is so much history and architecture in every house, and I would encourage everyone to just go walk around and see it for yourselves.

Group 5 Walkabout - Westminster - North, South, and East

Group 5 had a lovely time walking through the neighborhoods near Westminster. Most of the streets follow the normal (and less complicated) grid pattern, except for the streets directly east of Westmin. Most of the street were lined with big trees and framed the main paths, the roads and sidewalks. We watched many cars drive by and people who appeared to be students with heavy backpacks use these paths. The main landmark was Westminster College, of course. After getting even a street away from Westmin and 13th east, the sound of the cars in rush hour dissipated and we were able to analyze the houses. We concluded that most of the houses were usually going for some sort of bungalow style, but many missed the mark or looked as if they had been altered over time. Almost all of them were relatively close to the street and to each other, and had a small area facing the street, but extended back more. The majority were single-storied, were made of naturally colored materials, and few had attached garages. Here is an example of a common house: 

The farther away from 13th east and up the hill, the larger the houses got. The front yards were larger and the houses were rectangular with the long side facing the street. We took our group picture in front of one of these houses. We didn't see too many people while on our walkabout and we got the sense that it was very private neighborhood. We assumed that since it was close to the college and we saw a few people appearing to be students nearby, some of the houses were probably shared by college students, especially those closer to 13th east. We could gather that these were middle-class range people and their houses were more for functionality than frills.

Group 4, Residential Walkabout: Harvard & Yale

For Walkabout #3, our group looked at the houses in the Harvard & Yale area. Harvard and Yale are two streets that run east/west for several blocks between 13th E. and 9th E. The houses varied widely in style; there were Tudor revival homes next to more prairie style modern homes next to bungalows. This led us to believe that these homes were custom built to the owners' tastes. Depending on how far east or west you are, the houses have varying degrees of distinct architectural style. The houses farther east are bigger and have more obvious architectural styles, while the houses farther west were smaller and more nondescript.

How close the houses were to each other also depended on how far east you were up the street. The houses were closer together, smaller, and more run down as you went down the street (west), while the houses were larger and on bigger, better kept lots the farther east you traveled. The bigger houses all had garages, and were therefore set back from the street a little bit more. The smaller houses were all fairly close to the street and had either covered car ports added onto the side or street parking. The bigger houses had very well groomed lawns and detailed landscaping, while the smaller houses rarely had front yards at all and several houses had chain link fences up.

The streets did not conform to the grid pattern very well. They were all fairly straight, but they did not line up with each other exactly from block to block. The large trees lining the streets made it obvious that the streets were the main path; the trees covered the street and almost isolated the sidewalks, indicating that the sidewalks were not the main paths. According to Kevin Lynch, "[A] great deal of planting . . . [can] reinforce a path image very effectively" (51). The neighborhood did not feel like a development or a suburban neighborhood. This was due to the diversity of house designs, sizes, and displays of wealth. By no means did it feel as if the people who live there are all the same types of people.

Individual Group 1: Red Butte Garden

Red Butte Garden... romantic, beautiful and colorful. The one sure-fire way to most girl's hearts, for Mitch at least. The garden was actually very pretty and I enjoyed most of it. There was, unfortunately, a path that you were forced to stay on or the group would abandon you so my unroutine way of exploring was stalled.

The colors were a big deal. They had all the plants color coded and grouped into their placed with signs and descriptions for each one. It was fragrant and had many small cove areas that inroduced a new region or type of plant as you traveled along the dusty pathway. They even had a water fall and fish that were as big as the ducks. And oddly the fish and the ducks ate the same food out of the "Feed the Animals" vending machine. I would say there was a monkey but it was just someone dressed up as Curious George. But I still took a picture with him!

It was a beautiful place and a nice place to be in the afternoon. For obvious reasons, also a fantastic date for a normal girl and a smart guy. I would still rather go watch wresting or go hunting... No judgement on regular girls.

Group 1: 1st-2nd and 12th-13th E

Ok... So this walkabout was interesting to say the least. Most of the houses were beautiful but it didn't seem like it belonged in the area that it was in. I always imagined the houses surrounding a college campus would be kind of run down and old and ratty. But, the houses seemed very taken care of, sweet and decievingly upscale. Nothing was out of place or gaudy but you could see how the owners took care of the small details making it a very warm and inviting place to be. On one of the corners there was a family doing yard work and a dog running around. How much more friendly can you get?

As far as the style of house is concerned many were the classic bungalow, with the occasional victorian embellishment, such as roman columns, fish-scale sidings or extreme color(like blue...incase you need a specific color). There were a few houses with the prairie style roofing as well.

All of the houses were close to the street and had quaint green yards and cute halloween decorations. One house I did notice had rocks covering at least half of their front yard with puzzled me... How are you supposed to play football in the front yard if you're running on rocks? Just food for thought. There were alot of windows on all levels suggesting that privacy might not be the bigest issue for the owners... or it suggests the owners would like to be taken as people with little secrets. We might never know.

My favorite part of the whole neighborhood was the side street that ran inbetween the houses. It gave the feeling of seclusion and mystery. The barn/shed might have contributed to that feeling as well. All in all the neighborhood was friendly, historic and cute and I didn't feel like I needed my gun at anytime. I just can't wait for Rose Park...