Sean Means, who has assumed the mantle of “culture vulture” in addition to his usual movie-critic role at the Salt Lake Tribune, made a nice observation today in response to the news that yet another venerable SL institution, Squirrel Brothers Ice Cream (which used to be Snelgrove’s, before it was infected with the “cutesy name syndrome” that runs rampant in this state), is closing down:

Or maybe [what killed the place is] part of a larger problem in Salt Lake City: A lack of respect for permanence.

 

Rome’s architecture is sculpted in marble. New York’s skyline is built from steel. Salt Lake City’s profile is written on an Etch-a-Sketch.

 

Think about the places that aren’t there anymore, and you start sounding like your grandpa: “I remember swimming at the Deseret Gym, then eating in the Tiffin Room. At night, we’d go dancing at the Terrace Ballroom – while the kids would see a movie at Crossroads Mall or a show at the Zephyr Club.”

 

The funny thing is that while we’re watching our past crumble away, we get excited when a piece of ready-made nostalgia – like the Road Island Diner that recently opened in Oakley – is plopped into our laps. There are still good old places left. Enjoy them while you can.

This is a sentiment — and a concern, and an aggravation — I’ve felt for a long time now. It is ironic — and sad and frustrating and maddening — that my local culture makes such a big deal about our city and state’s heritage and yet so few real efforts are made to preserve any of it.

Now, obviously the closing of an ice-cream store or a restaurant is a question of economics; such establishments close down all the time because they’re unable to compete or whatever. But I’ll bet good money that the building that houses Squirrel Brothers/Snelgrove’s — a nifty little mid-century structure with rounded corners suggestive of the streamline moderne style (I don’t think the building is old enough to be actual moderne, but I could be wrong) — will never be renovated or repurposed. Instead, it’ll get ground into powder beneath the treads of a demolition backhoe, and some anonymous, plastic-fronted fast-food box that’s identical to every other plastic fast-food box in the valley will go up in its place. That pattern has been repeated over and over and over throughout Salt Lake City and the rest of the valley. Even the places that directly relate to the pioneer history we celebrate every year on the 24th of July (that’s Pioneer Day, for non-Utahns) aren’t safe from the wrecking ball, not when a wealthy developer sees an opportunity to bring in a national chain or throw up another row of tract houses, make a quick buck, and leave behind another charmless clone that contributes nothing to a sense of place or identity. It makes me sad, and it makes me angry that so few people recognize the value the old stuff in our midst.

The big monumental buildings — the LDS Temple, the State Capitol, Salt Lake’s City and County Building — that sort of thing is in no danger, obviously, but what about the small shops and cafes and garages, the individual farmhouses and bungalows? And let’s not even mention the open space on the south end of the valley that’s getting chewed up about as fast as the Brazilian rain forest. These are the things that really define a place and which offer the strongest connection to our shared history, because they’re the things that saw the most use by the people who built them. They’re also (coincidentally?) the things that we Utahns seem to value least. The common sentiment is, “it’s just an old house/cafe/field… who cares?” Well, I care, and I think a lot of other people do as well, even if they don’t exactly realize it. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be constructing faux-nostalgic eateries like Winger’s and Sonic, and (as Means notes above) importing genuine nostalgia like the Road Island Diner from other states.

I realize, of course, that we can’t save everything. But I also think Utah’s percentages are pretty lousy when it comes to the stuff we can save, and we should be doing better. We simply don’t have the cultural will in these parts for preservation. The problem, as I see it, is two-fold. First, we’ve got an entrenched institutional bias in this state against any sort of government regulation on business, even if it’s nothing more than refusing to allow exceptions to existing ordnances. Basically, if a developer wants to do something, sooner or later, they always get their way, even in the rare cases where public opinion is strongly opposed (look up a few articles on Dave Mecham’s Sugar House debacle for a current example). The other issue is a populace that skews very young. This is going to sound very Grumpy-Old-Man-ish, but the fact is kids simply don’t appreciate where they come from. You have to rack up a few years before you start to wonder about things like “well, where did Grandma and Grandpa hang out when they were my age?”

Our architecture says a lot about who and what we’re about, as a people. We read in the media all the time that we’re (“we” meaning Americans in general, but I think this is very applicable on a local level) becoming a restless people, disconnected from each other and from our culture, ignorant of our own history (let alone anyone else’s), and generally turning into a bunch of shallow, self-absorbed prats. Granted, media stories like this are alarmist and overstated, but I don’t believe they’re entirely untrue. And I think a big contributor to that deterioration is the rapid changing of our landscape and the single-minded focus on the new and shiny. I’ve written before of how I grew up in what I think of as the “hand-me-down world,” i.e., a landscape that was still filled with old stuff and not much changed from the landscape my grandparents knew when they were young. I’m convinced it gave me a sense of connection to history and to earlier generations that kids today, growing up in a strip-mall and subdivision world where nothing is older than about two decades, just don’t have. And I find that both sad and wrong.

I didn’t mean to ramble on at such length about this, and I’m not even sure if I’m making much of a point (not a coherent one, anyhow), but as you can probably tell, this is something I care deeply about. I hate how we’re bulldozing or otherwise losing damn near everything historic or just plain cool in the Salt Lake area and replacing it with cheap stucco-and-drywall garbage that won’t last a generation, let alone three-quarters of a century like many of the things I grew up with. I don’t know how to actually change anything, but I really do hate it.

And I guess that’s all I’ve got to say about that…