Downtown Salt Lake City Merchant Interview Transcripts

posted September 18th, 2007

These are all, Mr. Lorenz made these hundred years ago. Even these shafts are forged by a blacksmith. They look all dirty and old but they still work.
The old timers used to rub on their knives thats taken the place of brining them in to get sharpened. to get the porper shape
I'll grind that and ill shake my hand and that will give me the right shape
This ones not bad to do, the other one is hard because its got the point and it doesn't want to balance
2:55 the litte scisors this size was made in Germany and the old man who made them, made the whole thing out of bare steel. He didn't do the tempering but he did all the grinding. But you could tell after he passed away, it took them a while to recover from his loss. This knife here is all hand work. mother of peral, it even has a little ruby here inside.
3:38 Three years ago this September.
3:36 One of the things I remember, Judge Vancock used to come in and have me sharpen his pocket knife. And if he got mad over in the courtroom, he used to just close everything down, and he would walk over here to calm down and we would sharpen his knife. [laughing] That was kind of fun because he was a tough old bird. QUite a character for downtown SLC. Some of those old people were really fun to be around. When you saw them on the street. I don't suppose it would be fun to be in his courtroom. but just seeing out on the street was really nice. And the old Newhouse Building, we got to sand there and watch them knock that down. That was quite a time.
4:46 But a lot the old people Gallensons they used to be right on State Steet, they are just off of state street now east. But the old man, these old men they were all characters, these old men that would run these stores,hard working always there, even if they didn't feel good they came to work. Great time for a young man to meet those kind of people.
Many years ago and um, when they got to salt lake city, one of them stayed here and the other brother went to Portland, Seatle that area. They both opened shops. But it was a few years before they opened up the shop, they sharpeened with the little cart for a long time.
and then his His horse and wagon were built right across state street here on 4th South when the wagon shop was there, its gone now the banks there.
5:49 And I started here in 1960, the first day of 1960. And I used to come in here when I was a little kid, I'd come and bother them, the old man, I wanted to look at the knives. And when I got old enough he asked me if I wanted to work for him and I was still a fanatic for knives, and thats been all of these years so . We have have a new owner now, the Lorenzes have passed away, Mark, the new owner has had it a couple of years now. I think the main thing we have done, is maintain quality, theres no junk in here and um. I believe thats the same way with the other stores up and down main and state. They try to keep the quality high and thats exactly whats here.
6:40 One time during the war Mr. Lorenz only had one item in the store and that was a meat cleaver so the store got by just on sharpening for a while and umm and now we have lots of nice beautiful things and a variety of differnt brands. And a lot of our old customers waddle in here with a cane and have to have a taxi bring them right to the door, but they keep coming and we are sure please about that.
What kind of changes have you seen along main street since you started working here?
Well the parking and the stores have goten much fancier, I kind of miss the old Haberdashers store that was a neet place here on Main Street for years. The parking is the biggest change I think. Of course, there are many more stores. I think thats about it. That would be the main change I've seen.
What other stores do you remember since the downtown beatification and the opening of the malls?
Well some of them have actually moved off main steet, the old sears store. There were a few old clothing stores that are gone. But um most of its just the old timers that have made it nice downtown. Lambs cafe and the bookstore and some of the old jewlery stores are still here and their kids are running them. and so I'm kind of a blank.
What do you think about the new redevelopment? They used to have Richard's Street and Regence Street where the malls are now, Now they are tearing down the malls and bringing them back.
I think its past time to do that, a lot of the parking problems have been solved now. So we can do more things downtown now, I think that is the first step in really making it come alive again. yea
I remember you coudn't get your lunchtime in because there were so many people on forth south walking along fourth south walking back and forth and we we always stayed open way late this time of year because a lot of people would have to shop after quitting time, before Christmas and the hollidays. It was fun, I loved working for Lorenzes they were like family, and I think all of these businesses along main and state are the same way. Were someonbody has been working for them for so many years, they just turned into one of the family members practically.
Was Main Street and this area a funner place to be when there were more people walking around? Oh yes very much um Edith Lorenz, Lou Lorenze's mother she could remember when the asphault stopped here on fourth south coming down main the rest was and the rest was dirt all the way down going South on Main. So if she were still around shed have some great stories about how things have changed. Just like this little building; the bricks were made up on 2nd or 3rd east someplace by a little man one-at-a-time. -really
And its still standing thank goodness, I don't know if we are holding the chimney up or if the chimney is holding us up. But they used to heat this couple of three blocks with steam, and umm that was nice.
Is that what that is a steam chimney? for a yea there was a steam plant in there.
thats not used at all anymore.
No its not used anymore
I guess its easier to let it stand there, than try to tear it down. I don't know what we would do with the building if they wanted to tear it down I don't know what we would do with the building if they tried to tear it down because we are hooked right to it,
yea thats huge, thats the biggest thing I've ever seen.
We are still grinding in back with the old wheels, thers probably half of the wheels back there
old man Lorenz made them himself, there made of wood and then they have elk hide glued on them and then we glue different kinds of grit on them so we can do the differnt steps.
Whats the bigger part of your business the grinding or the selling knives?
The grinding, the christmsas holliday times, its good in the front and the parking has been a little problem, but its gotten quite a bit better. The big parking terrace acrross down on Main and first south
Can you just explain what that is?
This picture is a picture of Lou Lorenzes father, The first Lorenz to came to Salt Lake City to shapen. And he sharpened with a little pushcart first, But he got this wagon built right here on fouth south, just east across State Street, where the wagon shop was. And this was the day that he went and picked it all up. And that was how they used to sharpen. And Lou Lorenz, thats a picture of Lou Lorenz out in front of the shop when he took it over from his father. And Lou was a great guy, very personable, a lot of people in town liked him and he was a terrific skier, he was president of the ski association for while.

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Utah woolen mills started in 1905 as a direct to consumer business. Which means they had salesman going door to door or to farm houses to set up appointments to farm houses or hotels. And people would meet them. And I remember picture that we still have in our store of one day CODs in the early 30s of four or five trucks in front of the business packed to the top for packages they were sending out. They were pretty proud of that. As the automobile became a little more prevalent people started traveling to the malls and to the stores and Utah Woolen Mills became a little more of a retail destination rather than just doing the door to door type of thing. So we've kind of evolved into a retail destination. The one thing we've maintained, as far as Utah Woolen Mills goes, the quality and the integrity of our product and aa the longevity of personalities as well as products.
How long have you been at this location here?
We've been here for approximately 30 years. We were on Richard's Street where Crossroads Mall sits for 76 years.
Explain Richard's Street
Richard's Street sits right now where the new mall, where the old mall, Crossroads Mall sits. The entrance to 2:18 Richard's Street was right off the South gate of the temple. Interesting enough the new project that they have is going to bring back Richard's Street; which is what we fought 30 years ago. "Why are you taking us out of our element to put a mall over the top of us." and they said at the time well, "this will save downtown." Well it didn't and here we are again going through exact same thing to bring back the flavor of the small shops. It's sad to see that the shops 2:53 have changed hands or just gone bay the wayside because of the changes in downtown Salt Lake. In my short time I've been involved with the business, with my dad, for over 35 years, and I've seen the beautification, the downtown beautification of the sidewalks, take out businesses. The light rail took out many, many businesses. The um construction of the Crossroads Plaza took out even more. It's been one thing after another with construction to beautifying to make better, it just taken its toll. There is no one downtown.
What do you think made the whole shopping mall era come about? And why did think they thought that would be such a good idea with an already vibrant downtown?
Well that's a good question. Well I think the shopping mall it didn't happen in Utah first, it happens in other places in the country and they saw success there. To have a mall, that would bring everybody down to your downtown because
Downtowns for the most part are deteriorating and people are leaving the downtowns because of crime or whatever. They are leaving. And residential areas are on the outskirts of the town rather than inside of the city. And the success of 4:00 malls was huge, 30 years ago, and they thought, "this will save us," because our downtown, you know, all downtowns across the country are dying. So we need a mall to bring people to us. And so they did that, and it was very successful for a few years. and now the new thing is that malls aren't cool, its residential, its mixed use, and some theatres and restaurants and a little bit of retail, and have it open again so people can walk the shops and feel like they are in 4:26 Europe or the old main street of yesterday in the U.S.A. SO its gone full circle and we've been through it, I mean a 101 old business, I personally haven't, but I've watched, and as I read through the history of our business we've seen it happen, its destroyed some and made some.
So are you happy with what they are doing now?
I guess the jury is still out. I think it's incredible what's happening. We were able to stay because I believe the L.D.S church wanted to preserve the family. And what better example than a 101 year-old family business right in the middle of the project, to preserve them. So we would have to think that's the reason why we are still here, because we are one of the only ones that are here. Most people don't want to go through the construction period and we're not looking forward to it. But so far so good, people have been supported us, they still come to us. Maybe it's because we have our private parking lot, underneath. Next to our store, that allows people no matter what happens, to get to us. But I think the project bringing in multimillion dollar condominiums and apartments and restaurants and some shops, not just generic mall shops that are everywhere, but some unique things like our store, like Sam Weller's I mean we are unique to the area. I mean you don't see places like this anymore, they are out of business. 5:50It's become generic mall stores, and we don't want to be a part of it. We don't want to be in a mall, we've never wanted to be in a mall.
6:00 what strategies do you have to stay in business and get enough business to pay your bills?
Our strategies are that we have a pretty good customer base and we've tried to let them know that we are staying and we've sent out a map to let them know how to get to our parking still. Ummm we'll plan some promotions for our customers. And because we are still are across the street from temple square, um over five and a half million people hit there every year and we are still visible, I mean we're not going anywhere. I think that business will still continue and we have plans to bring in people from other offices here, law firms other offices here law firms business that are downtown, and give them some special privileges if they want. After hours or early mornings if they want the store to themselves, we can do things like that we've done that in the past.
Can you just say your name and your title?
I'm Bart Strigham the president of Utah Woolen Mills, thanks a lot.
6:50 How do you differentiate yourselves from the big retail chains, the Men's Warehouse, Macy's?
Yea, all the big hitters. We differentiate ourselves quite easily because of the quality of merchandise we carry. And we've told this story many times about this worst of wool corduroy pant. I mean they are over 360 bucks. Last year we in 05, we sold over 300 pair of these worst in wool corduroy pant. Most stores wouldn't have a pan...that's the suit price 369 bucks for a suit. Our idea is, lets buy something unique, that is really good quality, that people who buy the first one will get several more, and that's what's happened. We differentiate ourselves from department stores with the quality of our merchandise. Our service is better, we maintain a printout of customers, and we know what they bought and when they bought it and what they need. It's been, you know very nice for them and it's been good for us. But the quality of our merchandise, the average price of a suit in our stores is around 13-14 hindered dollars. We 8:16 have Brioni suits as much as 4 to 5 thousand on the rack. So were different, but that's ok, because people don't want to look like their next-door-neighbor, they want to have something nice and something different and that is what we are. High quality, not over-priced, just good stuff.

watch short filme for interview transcript

Talk about Lambs restaurant why you started and how you have stayed in business so long

John: Lambs started in Logan Utah in 1919, and it was in Logan until 1939 when Mr. Lamb was asked to move to the business district in Salt Lake City. After coming down and looking at this location he decided that that was what he would do. Then he moved down here to this location and he has been here ever since. It's been here on Main Street 67 years. We haven't changed our formula very much in all of those years. If you look at an old menu from 1919 a lot of the items are still on our menu today. Certainly the prices have gone up from those dates but the quality and consistency of what we produce and what people expect has not changed over that period of time, and that certainly stands in good stead in terms of trying to maintain our client base and our clientele.

What changes have you seen while you have been here at Lambs in the downtown district?

I started working in 1954, so I've pretty much seen most of the big stuff that has happened downtown. During those early years there used to be a lot of people on Main Street. It was a big thing for people to come downtown. To go shopping, to eat whatever. People would get dressed up, they would wear coats and ties, women would wear their hats; high heels uuum dress up, wear their best cloths and they would come downtown to go shopping. The streets were lined with all kinds of retail. There were no malls in those days, so everything was on the streets and it brought people downtown to do their shopping. Of course as time has gone on and the advent of the two malls up the street from us it took all of that retail off of the streets. But I think the biggest culprit was the 1976 downtown beautification project that pretty much decimated downtown Salt Lake City for the year that it took them to get around block 57 to the South of us. That time we lost Wolfs and Arbach's and Penbrocks and Broadway Music and Baker's shoes just a multitude of businesses could not survive that year that it took to go around that block. So from that day forward downtown has been a totally different place then it was before.

Was their no access during that year?

Not around those blocks. People could walk to those businesses, but the streets were torn up because they were replacing the sidewalks. And as that moved forward project their was no access on any of those streets, so you couldn't get around that block for a year. It was muddy and it was horrible and people just wouldn't venture into those stores. So their business went from what ever it was, which were very successful businesses for a long period of time, to almost zero in sales and they just couldn't survive.

What enabled you to survive during that period?

Well actually our business went up during that time, because people wouldn't go very far. Even though there were restaurants a block a way from us, everyone that was working close by the restaurant, everybody would just come out of their offices and just eat at the closest place. and um We are fortunate because we are very centrally located in the business district and their was a lot of office space and all of these buildings were full, and people would come and we literally saw a 10-15 percent increase during that particular contraction project.

What about during tracks construction?

That was a little different, we actually saw our volume go down during that period of time, but we kind of let natural attrition take its toll and we didn't have any top level management, it was just family and ummm. So we were able to survive by just kind of working our guts out for two or three years.

What do you think about the new downtown redevelopment? Do you think it's a good project?

I think it is, I don't see anybody else interested in actually stepping up and trying do something to improve downtown Salt Lake City. I think that Gateway seriously hurt at least Main Street and I think that the planners were wrong with their initial concept that all of those places all of those dollars should have been spent in the downtown that was already here, but now that they have reinvented downtown and they have moved it four blocks West which I guess is ok. umm it has hurt this part of downtown 6:12 Salt Lake with regard to retail sales. I think this part of downtown will always be the business district of Salt Lake City and the sate of Utah. I think this will be the business district here forever.

Whether or not these projects will help bring back some of that retail, it will be interesting to see and we hope that it does. But they are building other new buildings; the building next door to us is being renovated. They are putting up a new twenty one story office building between the hotel Monco and Sam Weller's. The block across the street is touted to be the new art center for the downtowns Salt Lake City and of course you have the L.D.S church renovating three complete blocks to the North of us. So we are centrally located to continue to prosper and we hope that's of course that is what happens.

I'm not totally in favor of the sky bridge. I think that is what in my estimation it takes away from the fact they are reopening the old Regence Street and Richard's street that goes through those two blocks where the malls are located. Um to keep people walking around downtown salt lake city. But they are going to build a sky bridge which is going to keep people off the street. So it kind of seems to be a conflict to see what their overall purpose is. I guess that is still on the drawing board and it hasn't been completely decided yet in terms of how that's going to work. But overall I think it is going to help this part of downtown compete more with retail sales

How have you seen your business fluctuate form the 50s till now? Were their a lot more people coming to your restaurant back then?

There were, umm we have had a lot more people in the early 50s 60S we would serve 6-800 people per day. We are not they completed tracks. So in spite of everything that has gone on around us in downtown SLC umm the loss of many many more businesses especially reseraunts have not flourished not very well during all of these construction phases. We have been very fortunate in being able to thrive and survive and like I said for the last 6 years we have set a sales record every year, and we are ahead of last year this year. So hopeful that will continue.

Why don't you think all of these other restaurants on Main Street have survived?

Well I have my theories about that obviously being in the restaurant business as long as I've been in it. It seems to me that part of the problem is that a lot of the other restaurants aren't large restaurants. And the time that you really make the most and do the best is either at dinner time or lunch time. And you need to have enough seats available to the public so that when they are out and about you can take as many of them as possible. Um during a normal longtime now we will still seat upwards of two to three hundred people during lunchtime so consequently we are able to get that number of people through the restaurant feed em, get them back to their offices and pay the bills during that period of time. Whereas if you are a small restaurant and you only have 20-30-40 seats once you are full you're full and that's all you can get, and it doesn't matter how many people are outside waiting to get in. Typically they don't have enough time to wait very long so they are out looking at someplace else. But when its crunch time and for some reason their is a decrease number of people on the street or people are forced to move one direction or another because their is something else going on in downtown salt lake... and they move away from those areas and they don't have enough volume to pay their bills and maintain their businesses.

What do you think that is about this style with the countertop and the bar that has made it gone out of style?

Well number one it's not a diner it's a full service restaurant with linen table cloths. Which takes us beyond a diner. But years ago when we were really busy during the war late forties early 50s and 60s there would be so many people waiting to sit at the counter that the counter would be completely full 21 people sitting there and there would be people lined up behind them waiting for them leave so they could take their place as soon as they left and course we don't see that many people waiting to use the counter any more, but for single people it is very convenient, its fast its efficient, they can get in and get out. It's just like if you go into another restaurant usually the counter isn't as full, and perhaps you would have to wait 10-15 minutes for a booth or table, but counter seating is available right away. And for businessmen lawyers, people who are in the restaurant who need to get back to their offices quickly, so that stands in good stead to have that type of space available.

As far as the rest of it. People know what to expect we have a very large menu and they can come in and have a very large selection, they can come everyday its affordable still, we haven't raised our prices to the point where it hurts to come to lunch. And a Two people can still come in and have lunch for under 20 dollars and that is almost unheard of anymore. And they can still do it for under 10 dollars if they are really frugal and there aren't too many places where you can do that.

My last question is, what does this place offer being unique to Utah, unique to Salt Lake that none of these chain restaurants offer like Olive Garden that you just see everyplace?

I think tradition and history. I don't think a day goes by when someone doesn't tell me, "My mother used to bring me here," or "My father used to bring me here when I was a little girl." And it brings back so many memories to people. And it means so much to so many people in Salt Lake City and the state of Utah. People still come, in fact yesterday, they hadn't been here in 30 years but they wanted to come back here to Lambs while they were here.
And a lot of people say, "well why don't you bring these concept to Denver or "Why don't you bring this concept to California or take it somewhere else, its so unique it's so wonderful its so unbelievable quaint." and um it feels like home. It feels like going back home, and I believe that's true. I have writers and movie producers that umm come in and sit on the counter or sit at a booth and they work here 14:00 because its so conducive to their psyche and they will use the restaurant not only to eat but to be creative in other parts of their lives. 14:10 And umm I think that's why especially now during Christmas time we are going to inundated with families, people who used to come with their parents are now brining their children to enjoy Lambs before they go to the temple to see the lights at the LDS Temple. Or before they go to the the Nutcracker, or before they go to the Kurt Bestor concert or something else. They will stop by Lambs and take advantage of what we have to offer. And enjoy the spirit of what Lambs has become.

If you can just say your name and just say again that you have worked here for 50 years.

My name is John Speros. And I started working in Lambs in 1954 as a young 10-year-old boy. And I've worked here almost ever since. I went away for five years and worked on a P.H.D and then I came back to the restaurant business. This has been my whole life, every night after school, every summer vacation. This is where I've spent my life building this business, and helping build it of course. But umm.

Is the family still involved?

Mr. Lamb never had any children he retired from the restaurant in 1973 and he passed away at 93 in 1985. He and my father were partners from 1939 until 1973 and my father owned the restaurant from 1939 until 1973 and my father owned the restaurant only from 1973 to 1977 when I bought it and I've owned it ever since.

The store was founded in 1929 by my Grandfather. He was Gustov Weller he was a German immigrant. Immigrated from Germany in 1925, and immediately prior to running a bookstore he was running a little junkshop and one day he had the opportunity to buy a very good library of Mormon books, which was his real love. And nobody in the family gives me a real thorough description of what happened then, but my dad, the one who eventually took over, was eight-years-old when this happened. But he switched his general second hand merchandise shop into a bookstore. He was on 14 east first south.
And how did it evolve into what it is today?
In some steps they moved once to 28 east first South and gradually started incorporating save non-Mormon material. My Grandfather was an extremely conservative Mormon. 1:26 1939 the moved to 65 East 2nd South, that their third location, really their most prominent location prior to this, my father worked their through his childhood. He took over in 1946, and he was a much more liberal man than his father, he wasn't quite as conservative in his Mormon sense, he never repudiated the church. But from his teens he had been drinking and as a solder he picked up smoking. And a he really held the banner of a bookseller a little higher, including selling some banned books in the early forties and early fifties, which his military buddies, managed to smuggle in from France or Ital.
Banned in the U.S?
Yea, the ones he's told me stories of getting, Italian editions of D.H Lawrence's works and French editions of Henry Miller. That his military buddies, after a couple of years in the army, he had connections in the military; and these guys would pick them up in Europe and bring them back in the duffel bags and Sam would buy a handful of Henry Miller titles and sell them to you if he trusted you... and you wanted them. So, unlike his father, he was aaa a broader sense of the book business, he also didn't shy away from books that were critical of Mormonism. Even though he was a Mormon he wasn't, he was a liberal minded Mormon, he was a book man. and uu he defended the rights of people to read works that criticized the Mormon Church, which brought him a few headaches over the years, people felt that he shouldn't be doing that, but he adopted the perspective that I probably have to a greater degree, that it is not the choice of any society or government or group, to decide what you read. You know freedom comes with some risks, and some responsibilities and most books sellers today agree, that censorship is a bad thing and as scary as it is, the individual just has to choose and navigate.
Is there one book in particular that he carried in his store, that was critical of the Mormon Church that the community didn't like?
Well when "No Man Knows My History" came out by Fawn Brodie that presented Joseph Smith from a psychological context, and in the end left him looking a little less than saintly, that caused such a stir, and because she had such a reputation as a biographer because she emerged from the Mormon community, and because she was published by one of the most prestigious publishers of the time -- Kanoff-- you know any author that got their work published by Kanoff, felt awfully good about it, you know that was big. So I think there had been many books critical of the Mormon Church over the years but I don't think most of them stung as much as hers did.
We kept growing over the years, I should mention, we moved to Main Street in 1961 and throughout my life we've expanded when we had the money to do it and there was some fallow space, that we could colonize, so to speak.
4:39 How did this space come up for you guys?
Here on Main Street?
Yea.
As the story goes, he was in a the 65 East 2nd South location was a two story an art-deco style building, it was really pretty, I've only seen it in photographs. As the story goes the church had bought the building and since the ownership had changed and Sam was a mere tenant, he got nervous about what the future of his bookstore would be, and before any real decisions were made about the property by the owners of the property he started looking for another location and he found this space. At the time is was just a rental for him, and he started renting on main street, and he was really happy to be on main street, because in those days it was really the nexus of commercial activity in our city. And he saw that as his arrival. To be on second south was almost to be on the second tier of business, but when he got on main street he felt like he was on the top tier.
What sort of changes have you seen along Main Street since the time when you were a kid, and have grown up here?
Well most notably is the loss of occupancy and local businesses. I grew up in the period when Arabach's was operating and the and the Paris Company, the Pinecone cafe King Joy and numerous other small businesses. That's pretty much what I recollect probably until the mid-seventies, when I would have been in my mid-teens, I think, and this is 6:30 mostly heresy from my parents, whom I trust: that the downtown beautification project in the mid-seventies, from what I hear was extremely hard on merchants, I wasn't really a part of that while it was going on, it was just a family issue and I was the kid. But I know it did harm a lot of businesses and almost like the second blow. What I consider to be one of the most foolish decisions ever made of downtown planing, was to build to build Crossroads mall across the street from the ZCMI mall. There was probably no better way to guarantee, that the businesses that were not in one of those two malls would suffer and eventually disappear and die. That seemed to be the beginning. Sorry about all the background noise here. That's alright. That's life in retail.
What do you think was lost when the mall was built?
7:20 Character, I kind of like old-fashioned Main Steets, where people walk up and down the streets. And umm.. local businesses, my heart really goes out to local businesses. Not only because I earn my living at one but because of the diversity that local businesses represent. in this era, I think its very sad to go to other cities and see the same stores everywhere you go. From an economic and social perspective I hate to see so much economic power consolidated into the hands of fewer and fewer people. I think that the pie was more evenly divided when most restaurant and most retail was in the hands of local citizens. So I think we lost a lot of character and spirit. I think we additionally harmed our economics because recent studies have shown that local business spend their money locally. If I'm hiring an attorney, I'm hiring a Salt Lake guy. If I need a printer, I'm hiring a Salt Lake printer. Most of the professional services I require are bought locally. On the other hand, Barnes and Noble or Borders, they may have a store here and some of their income might trickle in locally but their other professional services are coming from out of state. And so the money that they collect locally is to a large degree, flying out of here. 8:52 At least with the local businesses, its spent locally and I think that is much better for local economics.
Was your coffee shop addition in response to sort of browsing, drinking coffee environment, that Barnes and Noble provides?
Well, its an idea that pre-dates the Barnes and Noble idea, you know. They learned it from strong independents around the country. Not from us, we didn't have a coffee shop until a couple of years ago. But from since my twenties it had been a concept that had been in my head, I just wasn't in a financial position to bankroll such a thing. And the book business is pretty overwhelming; I didn't really want to diversify my attention. I was really waiting to find a local coffee vendor, that had a symbiotic personality with ours, and that had the money and desire to have a new location and Coffee Garden happens to be the first we found. I had planted the seeds of this idea at least a dozen years before it happened. You know, back in the 90s I had gone to Allen at the Coffee Garden on 9th and 9th and said, "boy of I were wealthier, I'd try and buy into the place." But I really don't have that kind of money, but I want you to know that if you ever have a desire to be downtown, to be in our bookstore, we would do everything we can to make that easy for you to bring you into our space and make it affordable for you to be here.
Has that really changed your business here?
Its helped considerably, I haven't had any complaints about it. Our customers love it our, our staff loves it. The coffee garden people seem to be happy to be here. Culturally its a nice match. There has been a lot of inter-staff friendships going on. I See coffee garden staff leaving with our staff occasionally and I think, " Yea this is cozy." yea we like it.
Are you at all umm bothered or worried by the overwhelming power the church has in downtown now? Now?
Well, I guess that they have bought up in the past 50 years, you know owning the malls and Zion's securities and everything that they are doing?
Well its probably obvious from looking, that I'm probably less involved in the Mormon church than my father was. If I had to claim a group I would probably claim the Zen Buddhists. But I don't really gather with Zen Buddhists. I just can't find flaws in their thinking.
I think there is a lot of knee-jerk opposition to the church in our community. And I think a lot of the fears have been exaggerated. On the other hand when people say that they are building a Vatican on the North-end of Main Street I kind of chuckle and say it kind of seems like it. But it is the world headquarters of a rapidly growing religion and I guess it stands to reason that they would want Salt Lake City to be a showpiece. I've always hoped that politically the church might lighten up a little about the interests of the non-Mormon population. I feel like if there is one thing, they could do to allay the most paranoid and extreme concerns of their critics, it would be to just divorce themselves from the politics of liquor. 12:22 You know just get out of the liquor commission, and just let it be marketed in the way it is in other states. And I think that a lot of non-Mormons in Utah would see that as a gesture of peace, um and it would do a awful lot for what is seen as the cultural divide in our city.
Regarding the malls, considering, now I have this belief that the entire retail sector is oversaturated. It doesn't matter what you are selling there's too many stores. I also have this belief that with the birth of the internet, the profit-center of this country was shifted from consumers to Wall Street so that retail outlets became sophisticated ads for stock. Rather than truly about the consumer and supplying that person with services or products. And if one accepts that logic then we are very over-extended in the retail sector.
13:30 I find myself asking when the malls started to die, as many of us predicted they would with the construction of Gateway; "Who in that environment would have stepped forward and put enough money into those projects to return them to vitality?" I couldn't think of anyone except the church. And I'm not aware of anyone competing for the privilege or the burden of improving those two blocks, considering the proximity to the temple, Umm makes sense to me.
Right.
I don't know that it was state. I do know that they had a property tax increment to fund it. Which meant that if you wanted it or not, if you owned property here, you would be assessed an additional tax to fund this based on the footage in front of your property. I'm really; I was too young to be familiar with what the politics were at the outset. I don't know how long the construction lasted. A couple of the components that I do know about that I think were miscalculated were one that we needed to have these massive sidewalks, that were really disproportionate with the amount of pedestrian traffic we have in downtown SLC. But the real detrimental part of that was that they removed street parking, and in a community like this, where we are not land-locked like New York or San Francisco, people are accustomed to parking near their destination, and its hard for you average person who is trained thus, to forgive a slightly harder or more expensive parking situation, when the can go a half-a-mile away and get the same parking their used to. And so to loose street parking was very harmful to this neighborhood.
This rare book section in your store is really unique; I guess I should just ask how this come about, this part of your store did?
15:50 Well my dad had dealt in rare Mormon books, rare Western exploration, Utah history, and he kind of drifted into geology, mostly because the early and significant explorations of the west were government projects where they were funding these explorations. Either for the railway, you know they sent the Louis and Clark exploration out here, know Freemont's exploration, Powell's. You know these were government sponsored trips and so it was natural for interest in the exploration of the West to drift into geology. When I was a young man working into the store, this room we are in right now was the entirety of our general rare book department. And then we have a vault further down the Mezzanine where my father kept western Americana or Mormonism. The vault is really classy; it's a remnant of the original occupants of the building, the Keith O'Brien department store. Built largely from the Silver mining, Alta silver mining ventures. And the vault is just wonderful, it's a turn of the century vault, and in my time I said to myself that too many customers would be invited into the vault to look at the rare Mormon material. And they would say, "Oh, I hate to disturb you, I'm done now." and they would leave. And I said boy you know, if they feel like they can't browse for more than a few minutes, without being an inconvenience, I need to do something about this environment because you don't want a person to feel like they have to hurry when they are looking at your merchandise. They should feel like they can take their time if they are considering an expensive purchase. so When I 17:57 got old enough to be fascinated with rare books, uu my dad has a big ego, he's a guy you don't compete with, and I kind of knew that, my tastes were also different I was into philosophy, history, art. Sam was into Western history and Mormonism. And so I started working what was really the neglected part of the rare book trade, the literary, the scientific stuff, basically anything my father was working with as enthusiastically, I started on that other stuff. Later when his health started to decline and I started to take over control of the business, there was a date when we are just moving the L.D.S and the Western books out of the vault, um in the early 90s; we built the room just to the East of us here to get a bigger rare book department. And a few years after that we broke through the wall and added the room that is right over your shoulder there. North of this one. And now we keep all of our rare books here, and use the really classy old vault for rare material that occurs in series. As a way to utilize the space and still take advantage of the appearance and the groovyness of that old vault but to reduce the need for anyone to browse in there for any prolonged period. hmmm
If you can just say for me your name now. If you can say really briefly what's unique about the store, just in small sound byte. I'm
20:00 Well I'm Tony Weller, for what its worth I was named out of Dickens, Tony Weller was a character out of the Pickwick Papers, as was Sam Weller. Umm I think what's unique about our store is we are one of the largest stores in the country where you can find new books, common second hand books and rare books; I think we are also unique because we also have a very high caliber of staff. [Could you just pick it up at "I think we are also unique because] oh yea... I think we are also unique because we also have a very high caliber of staff. We hire very carefully we focus on people who love books, we focus on people who want stable employment, we distinctly avoid people who want short-term employment. We have what I've called an ego filter, who are not hot-shots or arrogant. And I think we train them pretty well. So more books than you'll find anywhere. I've got books out front you can buy for a quarter; I've got books in here that will cost you twenty-thousand-dollars. And I have a remarkable staff.
20:54 [Walking to the vault]
We just were flooded with calls, with people who had old hymnals that wanted to find out about.
This is where we used to keep Mormon and Utah and Western history. But as you can see now this all occurs in series. These are early government monographs of exploration. Pacific railway series, mixed in with a little U.S.G.S. And the rest of this wall is all U.S.G.S publications; and we have millennial stars, New Mexican historical review.
How old are most of these books?
They are mostly eighteen hundreds. This is the very significant Bureau of Ethnology Series, some of the first works to study the early Native Americans; to give it a real detailed treatment. If you were to enumerate the things by type. We really don't have any more than 15 or 20 types of books in here that occur in series, and we have an attic full of this stuff. So you can see if you know that this is the stuff that you want you might spend a little bit of time in here. But unlike browsing all of the individual novels, like you might do in the other room, here its 22:20like, if you want the Indian stuff, here's a whole bunch of it, you probably know which volume you want, because it has the tribe you want in it, and you really don't need to stand here and spend that much time to figure it out.
22:40 But I really like this old vault. We had a big fire here in 1971 and it virtually killed the family business. But the books that were in vault didn't get a drop of water and no smoke got in here. It was amazingly airtight -really-
So don't let yourself get locked in.
Yea
Yea I was amazed as a kid coming in here after the fire and I was amazed how everything was ruined, everywhere except the material in here you wouldn't know.
23:15 if I could get another shot from over here of just you opening it.
Oh sure
Over the shoulder
This case contains our more valuable Western Americana or Native Americana, and I think one of the pieces here that resonates best is this, it doesn't really look like much but it's the original government document containing John Freemont's exploration of the Rocky Mountains. Later editions are really much more attractive, because this wasn't really designed to be sold to people as a government document saying, "here's what John found." So it has some maps in it.
Wow
But that's the first way anyone in Washington found out what Freemont had found out here in the Rocky Mountains. You see that's the type of thing you could put out in a yard sale, 100 people would walk by it.
Hmm
Which would be a mistake?
So that's a pretty nice piece.
It's not worth pulling out, but this is a first edition of Powell's exploration of the Colorado River. It's not an A copy. It's missing some of the plates, unfortunately people cut those out of the books, I have really unkind words for those people. We call them book breakers when we are feeling polite. uu
This is neat this is a sad copy of Stephan's, I forget the name. Incidence of travel in the Yucatan. But what's really nice about this is we have an original letter, you want me to take it out of there. It's a letter from John L. Stephens accepting membership into the geographic Society. and so that's kind of neat. But this is considered, one of the best works on that early region.
It's really the letter that drives the value of that set up. But, old books come how they come.
Yea that's really neat.
I've got three more cases, oh, as far as stuff that people recognize; there is a really good looking Desert Solitaire.
I just read that for the first time a couple of months ago, that a great one.
One that gets everyone's attention that's in our recent cataloged. This is a 1708 Lutheran Bible. And just magnitude of that thing gets everyone's attention. Usually we don't put the weight of a book in its catalog description, but that is so absurdly large that we a put it on the scale and found out that it's a 32 pound Bible. It has some beautiful engravings, it's really awkward to open but I'll do it if you want. If you look at the design, in the gold edges they call that gofering, where they actually engrave a little design in the edges of the paper. It's hard to get that, we got it in one photograph where it looked pretty good.
27:00 Opening
This not only has beautiful engravings, but it has more engravings that you will ever encounter... in a book... so almost, every eight or ten pages you has an illustration of this caliber.
Wow
I will show you a few, kind of randomly. Yea this thing is a remarkable production. One would have to have been a very wealthy person to buy a book like that in 1708. A common guy probably never saw a book like that.
[beep]
This was done on a removable type thing?
Well in those days it would have been hand set. They didn't have machines that could do it in that period.
Want me to turn again.
Where did you guys get this thing?
Well this is actually here on consignment. We don't do too many consignments.
But aaa, this one doesn't belong to us,
Is it a Utah family that is selling it?
Yes.
But there are more,
you have a few Bibles huu?
28:45 [walking] there's a few things in here that I think are worthy of attention.
Probably the nicest Book of Mormon we have here, and because we are in Utah, you can't leave that out. This is the uu third European edition of the Book in Mormon. It's just a coincidence of marketing buying patterns that right now I just happen to have the first European edition, the second European edition and the third European edition. None-the-less this isn't the most valuable of them, this one is, but I pick this because it has a binding that was made in one of the first one hundred copies and just for the elite members of the church. Most of them didn't have that kind of decorations, the guilded edges. This one has had a new spine put on it. This one is a contemporary binding, its kind of unusual; I'm not sure what the origin of that one is.
29:40Probalby another piece in here that I think is pretty fascinating...This is the first Deseret News Extra, admitting to the practice of polygamy in Salt Lake City and within the Mormon Church. And until then, it was kind of on the hush-hush but they finally, I think they got big enough, they thought, who's going to stop us here out in Utah.
mm
Boy that would be neat to read.
But yea this was the first time it was committed to print after it was spoken of in general Conference openly. Which can be yours.
How much is your oldest Book of Mormon?
Um this one is $22 thousand. The one I showed you we are asking $9 thousand for, and this you could have for eight.
Wow is that all?
Umm, let's see what else in here is really impressive. This is one of the best looking copies I have seen in years of Eliza R. Snow's first collection of poetry, it's not as rare as the second edition, but wow that is well kept.
mmm
You know that is really
She was a really interesting lady, just brilliant
Not the super high value of the others we have just $800 on that.
But it's just a gorgeous copy; it's just a delight to see an old book like that has endured so well
31:17 umm just one more, in here that I want to show you a few things, because there are a couple other cases I want to show you as well.
This is just an exquisite binding on Saint Augustine's Confessions; done by a guy with the name of Cedrick Shivers who is credited with the technique used here call the valucent binding. It involved the careful hand coloring of paper, then overlaying a transparent layer of velum. And then inlaying gold-leaf and mother-of-pearl. It has a little not in here saying, it was shown a the World Fair, not the last one, the turn-of-the-century, I forget where was it, the one before. But that's just a great example of a beautiful artistic binding.
Let's see, can I take you to the next case here?
Sure.
We've got to more here and then I think we will have kind of his some of our..
32:21 Oh...I've got to take my cup of coffee
Lets see, this case, we call it our non-fiction case. Oh boy what's some of the interesting things that's in here? We have some of the first engineering reports for the planning of Central Park. huu
that's a tough piece to find. It doesn't look like much but it's certainly an important piece of history here. Talking about the land was like before they started designing the park. I thought it was interesting; I just started reading through it randomly. Some parts discussing all of the Squatters that were on the land and how they were going to have to relocate these people before they would be able to get to work in designing Central Park.
Just people living in the park. Is that what a squatter is?
umm yes, unn huu.
A view from Belleview Rock Central Park North. Could you imagine being anywhere in Manhattan and seeing that much dirt?
Wow. shees
That's a pretty interesting piece.
33:40 A piece we just got back from a binder in Brooklyn. I love what he did to it. I can't talk in any informed way about the importance of that book. But its an early British work on Japan. We got.
Is that something that you have to do at a certain point to keep the book together? Well you may not have to, but there is a point of deterioration where you will preserve the book longer by doing this. And uuu.
It doesn't increase the value though by doing it?
If the book is trashed it does, but if you have the choice between a nice original binding and a nice new binding, in most cases just leave the original binding, the original parts are historically significant. The French take a different perspective on that they tend rebind anything and if they make it prettier then great. That's more of a French tradition. But a few other things here that I think are kind of nice. This is Eleanor Roosevelt's autobiography. signed by her. So that uu nice autograph for an important American woman.
35:07This is from 1670 an issue of philosophical transitions, talking about the health benefits of wine
Well
Sell that for $500
35:40 this ones a little awkward but I would like to show you this if your time can afford it. From what was 1876, but it has a lot of little illustrations in it, but every here and there you have these large scale engravings of these various devices. This is a hydraulic crane as it might have been designed in 1876. Not the most compelling illustration there maybe but I'm not really prepared I'm winging it
***let me get a shot from back here. Oh there's one that might be a little more fun, steam tram car from Vienna. At least the lay-person can recognize these things a little more readily.
wow, yea that's neat.
Yea, these came from a man who was involved in designing various rail lines through Utah.
Putting books away
Do you have anything like the old maps describing the old layout of the city how they initially described that we were going to have temple and the blocks surrounding the temple
Oooh, I don't have anything going back that far, we have some maps from the 1870s so that's a good 10 years later, thirty almost.
37:30 good shots of books.
There's a book in the news right now called the Ghostman, Its about the Cholora epidemics in London in England in the early to mid 1800s by Stephen Johnson. This I immediately thought of after this book hearing of this new book getting all of this attention. This is a government document suggesting new locations for cemeteries, which had recently been overwhelmed by this cholera outbreak. I don't really know contemporary London; I'm kind of a Utah boy. This is a map showing the main central part of London here and at the time they had this idea for, I thought there were eight, I guess their are seven here.
Yea, I heard about that book.
Yea, it's getting a lot of press. So I'm kind of hoping that somebody who reads that book and has the antiquarian bug will want to buy this one to kind of see how the municipalities grappled with all of that death. So that's an interesting item.
How old did you say that book is?
1850, so it would have been coming on the heels of what would have been the second major cholera outbreak.
I've got a signed R.F Kennedy in here, but that's probably good.
39:09 Before Autobon, Alexander Wilson was deemed the father of American ornithology. And this is a full set of Alexander Wilson's work, which were published in series by subscription and contained these hand-colored prints. And I feel lucky to have that set right now.
That looks just like Autobahn's style
Most acknowledge that Autobahn superseded him in his art but still a remarkable early work.
39:52 I just don't know when to quit, but this is a piece that doesn't look like anything outside but it is the naturalist library the mammalian series, has tiny little hand-colored plates of mammals. And that's a set.
jees that's neat
I just love these things; it has some really amazing work. I ask myself everyday "how come somebody hasn't bought that yet."
Probably because they don't know that it exists.
But I'll be a little bit sad when its sales because it's kind of a pleasure to have it here
And the last area that I'm going to show you is this case here. This is the case where we put items that are either literary or children's or a we add some of the arts in smaller volumes or philosophy or metaphysics here. A few of the ones that excite me in here. This one is autographed by Vladimir Nobokov, his work on Gogol. Not his most famous work. Lolita is the one that everyone remembers, but it was signed by Nobokov here in Salt Lake City in 1949.
Did you have the Mohawk before or after starting working here?
Which time?
After. Yea
Fist he established his affection for him and then he got his Mohawk.
A Mohawk friendly bookstore
One time I hired a guy, who just looked like the nastiest punk in the world, but he was really gracious with customer service, but I had to finally fire him when he tried to choke another worker who had teased him about his ignorance. We decided that was unacceptable. We could live with the Mohawk, but choking another worker was not acceptable.
Shot of books pan to side
Is it ok if I collect my stuff when I'm done?
Yea just get a staff worker and they will let you in.
Yea I mentioned that we hire for stability. But in addition to that we have sick leave, we give vacation pay and we buy insurance, we don't buy the whole thing we give half the contribution to our medical insurance.
So does that usually make you less competitive? I mean how do you.
I mean in a pricing sense it makes it difficult for us in matching those rock-bottom discount prices, but on the other hand we feel it is the right thing to do for our workers. I couldn't have a stable staff if I didn't do my best to take care of them and we really depend on having stability with our staff we have to pay them a little better and take care of them.
Yea
So that's my conundrum.

My name is Allen Barnett. I'm a historian, I'm particularly interested in Utah and local history and I did a book of photographs of historic Salt Lake Called "Seeing Salt Lake City" So I'm particularly interested in Salt Lake City and the changes that have happened in Salt Lake City over the years.

<p>In your mind what have been some of the most damaging projects that have happened over the last thirty or forty years in in downtown Salt Lake City?</p>

Boy there are so many because we have basically remade this city. We have torn down whole blocks of this city and replaced them with things that don't work as well as what was there before. I think the Crossroads Mall and the ZCMI center are classic examples of major changed that happened in downtown that really didn't pan out in the long-term. They proved to be poor, poor choices in city development.

And why is that in your mind?

Well I think its pretty simple, the fact that the buildings are being torn down now because there is really nothing wrong with the buildings themselves. They are failures, and so, they are being torn down to put in something that will work. As evidence they are projects that didn't have staying power. There is no doubt they were successful for a time they just didn't have the staying power, and like I said there is nothing wrong with the buildings, they are being torn down to create something new that will work.

So you don't think that in the interest of economic vitality to say "out with the old in with the new".

Well there is this really strong belief, especially with our developers that new is better and new can be better I suppose, but new isn't necessarily better, I suppose. In this case, new was not better than what we had.

3:03 Thirty-five years when the malls were built we had Richards Street and Regence Street intersecting that block and they tore down all those buildings in order to build the malls.
--And now they are bringing those back
yea, what do you think was lost by removing those streets to build those malls?

Well part of the problem with the malls was they were very inward looking isolated, complexes so that they didn't look out into the street, they didn't engage the street they didn't invite people in. They..You went inside and you could have been anywhere you could have been anywhere in the United States when you were in those malls. There was no indication that you were in Salt Lake City, there was no connection with the rest of the city, and they tore down all of those buildings that had that sort of connection that were integrated into the city. They ended up isolated the other businesses that were on the other end of the city which meant that those businesses ended up doing poorly, many of them went out of business.And so the rest of downtown suffered because there were these isolated inward looking malls umm that they had built that sucked the life out of downtown and what.. There was this whole idea at the time that nobody want to shop outside its gotta be an indoor mall. Cause no one will shop outside. But now you see the Gateway which is to recreate what we already had at the time. Gateway is really a poor imitation, as much as they tried, to really recreate that street-life environment that existed in Salt Lake City for decades and really disappeared after they built the malls because they sucked it all inside. And now they are trying to recreate that but,.. I guess there is really no way they can recreate what they lost. Um because it still..And Gateway event though they tried to recreate that lively street-scape is still has that really uniform mall, built by one developer and I don't think, the Gateway isn't something that is going to have staying power either. whereas, had they maintained, the historic street-scape of Main Street Richards street. That stuff would have had staying power that stuff could have lasted for centuries and um still sort of had that sort of vitality and appeal to people on the street that the new malls just don't have.

The new development, the City Creek Center, do you see elements in that that are going to differentiate it from Gateway?

Um no, I don't I see elements that are going to be an improvement over what is there now because they are going to try to open it back up to the street again. But I think they are going to have a real hard time trying to create something that doesn't feel like a mall, something that doesn't have this uniformity um that you just can hardly avoid in a large development like that. I think its going to have a similar feel to Gateway, I will probably be an improvement over whats there now, but its not going to be anything... and it wont have the staying power. My prediction is that in thirty years they will be taring down the City Creek center and will be trying to come up with something new. Because it wont have the staying power that the historic building that were there before had.

Doug Dansey of the City Planner's Office said that the reality of retail today is that um retail environments new to reinvent themselves every five to ten years, otherwise people are going stop coming. People want to see something new, and for that reason he felt that the malls were necessary down-town. In the interest of economic vitality how do you keep historic preservation and at the same time have economic vitality?

8:00 I think there is truth to that the consumer wants to see something new and so you do have to keep reinventing. But the fact of the matter is that revitalization of downtowns across the country. The revitalization projects that have been successful have invariably included historic preservation. Preservation of the historic buildings because that is what old downtowns have to offer that the suburbs don't have to offer. And so the ones that are really successful over the long-term are the ones that preserve, renovate and incorporate the historic buildings, and that has not happened in Salt Lake. And anytime you try to create a suburban mall in your downtown you aren't capitalizing on what your downtown really have to offer that's unique. And I understand that need for reinventing, but reinventing doesn't mean taring down and rebuilding something new. I'm mean its incredibly wasteful for one thing and it doesn't create anything, that is really inherently interesting, it just caters to the latest fad. And there are plenty of places in the country that have been successful over the long-term. There are places in Boston, places in the East, places in San Francisco where they have renovated historic buildings and historic business districts, and there is that need to sort of freshen up periodically, but the maintenance of the historic buildings is what continues to draw people. What it really is is its a sense of place. 9:38 and um you going to the ZCMI center or the Crossroads mall you never had that sense that you are in a unique place that has character. They are these monolithic um sort of faceless buildings it was just another mall. And the places that have that staying power I think have that unique character.Even Trolly Square, and I know that Trolly Square is up for a face-lift. But the fact that they preserved the historic buildings there means that its a unique place that people are still drawn to because you feel like you are in a special place there, you aren't just any anyplace U.S.A, which is what the new malls all feel like. I think that's the real mistake in what happened. A lot of the redevelopment of Salt Lake City, that sense of place has been eroded and there is nothing special about downtown anymore like there once was.

This is to quote Doug Dansey He says I think the bad decision have been on a much bigger scale he thinks the worst decisions that have ever been made in Salt Lake City were rather than annexing land as Salt Lake City was growing they created these separate municipalities. So rather than have one place that everyone considers their downtown instead you have all these municipalities that are competing for tax revenue. What is your answer to that do you think that was a problem as well.

Well not really, in a place a big as Salt Lake City I don't really think you can expect everybody to come downtown to do their shopping. So its inevitable that there's going to be these shopping centers and these sort of nodes that develop throughout the valley. I still think the people in Holiday the people in West Jordan they still think of Salt Lake as their downtown. I mean it is the downtown for the valley. Ans so It still has a special role to play and symbolically is still serves as the center for our entire community. But the idea that it could have somehow been preserved as the only shopping center in the valley seems absurd to me, with the kind of populations and the distances that people would be traveling. That may have been the case when you know the outlying areas were really rural and there really wasn't the opportunity the populations to support shopping centers outside of downtown, but that's just not the case any more, and that just seems absurd to me that Salt Lake...thats not to say that Salt Lake City, the downtown couldn't have played a larger role than it has.

I think what he is suggesting is that when that decision was made it created what was suburban sprawl. And creating all of these municipalities, it created less and less of a need for people to come into downtown and uu but let me get back to this other point. When I talked to all of the retailers that had been in downtown for fifty or more years, they all seemed to blame the downtown beautification project for killing a lot of retail that was on the street. And John Speros, the owner of lambs said, that killed Aurbach's, Paris Company, Baker shoes and a multitude of others, and downtown was never the same after that. In your mind what was wrong with that project?

I'm not familiar with what exactly what the downtown beautification project entailed. I'm sure it entailed a lot of construction that disrupted things.

Thats fine They just redid all of the sidewalks, and they were all torn up, and it took one whole year to get around one whole block of downtown.

I have a hard time believing that a large institution like Aurbach's went under because of one year of construction. There were a lot of other factors going on at the time. The beautification, I remember when it was going on and it always seemed a little bit strange to me because it was more of that effort to turn it into a shopping mall and umm. Putting trees that were in someways incompatible with the urban landscape. You know trees they end up blocking the signs of the..So I was never convinced that...even at the time as a kid it seemed odd to me. Some of it seemed out of place, it probably wasn't well designed, it wasn't well executed. And it probably did to harm to the businesses in the short-term. I think there had to have been larger problems then that. Because businesses that had been around for a hundred years don't just disappear for a little bit of construction over a period of years. It seems like a convenient scape-goat. But I think there were a lot of things going on and I think a lot of it had to do with the attitude of city planners and the attitude of people who didn't want to come downtown who thought it was inconvenient, or parking issues. There was a lot of complex issues. I don't think that Salt Lake City has done..did a good job of addressing those issues.And they are not alone, cities across the country have destroyed their downtowns. I think the cities that didn't destroy their downtowns are the exceptions and the lucky ones that somehow escaped that, but Salt Lake City didn't do a particularly good job.

Can you point out in some of these photographs what you believe are some of the most historic buildings and things that have been lost?

Umm boy.. I've got a number of different photographs. This one here is of Richard's Street, and there isn't any particular significant building, what is significant here is the street-scape, its the kind of street-scape that they now want to recreate. And we had the real thing and I think that anything now that they try to recreate, I think is going to look a little bit contrived, compared to what was there. But that kind of street-scape where you have all of these different buildings and that architectural interest, a lot of street life and that is gone now.
ZCMI, which is a great building, they fortunately kept the facade for the building, which I'm really glad of and I think a lot of people are, because its really a beautiful facade. 18:01 But its not really a building any more, its sort of like a skeleton, and one of the things I would really like them to do is turn that back into a real facade, put windows back in it and make it a real building again instead of just that skeleton. um you know because I think the real building has a lot more life than the skeleton does, even though the skeleton is a beautiful skeleton, it still doesn't have the life that a real building does. So we will see what happens in the new development. I'm assuming they are going to keep the facade as part of the new development.

One building that I think was a real loss, was this building, which was the constitution building. And this was replaced by the Crossroads Mall. And as you can see this is a real alive kind of building. A lot of windows looking out on the street, awnings. And this was replaced with the Crossroads mall which is this real monolithic blank wall, really unfriendly sort of architecture. and I think, you know, it was really that sort of turning inward, turning away from the city, rather than engaging the city. Really beautiful building, really hansom, imposing building. That was sort of on a human scale, as opposed to what was put up there. And recreating something like this I think is nearly impossible. I think they are going to something along those lines but I don't think its really possible to recreate what was lost here.
19:57 In addition to that there is just that whole street-scape, you know. That street-scape that is really alive with people, with a lot of different shops, offices, apartments, so there's people shopping, there's people going to the office there's people living all in the same space. Makes for a real live downtown, and that was all lost with the development that went on.
20:37 Another example, and this example was from 1947 and this just shows, you know what the streets were like in Salt Lake City at one time. The traffic, the foot traffic, um that went on in downtown Salt Lake city, that you just don't see now, there isn't, there just isn't, there aren't the businesses there aren't the people living there, there's just now that kind of life in downtown Salt Lake. People who say that Salt Lake City has made the right decisions, I just think the evidence is against that, because the life that was once in downtown Salt Lake City, just isn't there. So I just don't see how that can support that the right decisions have been made.

You know, one thing though, I notice that a lot of these pictures are from the forties and fifties, but during the problem era; during the late fifties and sixties. I'm not able to find a lot of photographs, and this is at the time that the city planners say downtown first started seeing some blight and some problems. Do you know why it seems that.

Oh yea that's when downtown really came to its crisis point, was in the sixties and the seventies. And what they term blight, its when the buildings were old and dilapidated probably a lot of vacancies. And rather than investing in renovating those buildings what they said is what we need. Which was the attitude across the country, was you just level whole blocks of your city and you put in completely new stuff, um including parking lots and umm. You destroy what you had in the past, somehow the reason it wasn't working was because of the buildings that were there. That somehow the solution was to put new buildings in that somehow and even though those buildings had worked in the past, they were the problem. And really, certainly their condition was a problem, certainly no building can last forever without some maintenace and some renovation.

So in your mind in you could go back to the seventies and you were in the planning commission, what would have you done to compete with the suburban malls and at the same time keep downtown restored.

I think that I would have umm, I would have looked at looked at renovating, capitalizing on the historic character of downtown, that there was something unique about it.um I think that renovation would have been important to make them look, to make them look clean, sharp um so that, to improve that image that downtown didn't have, that run-down dumpy image which I think it started to in the sixties and seventies. Um, and addressing issues like parking, how do you do that without tearing up the fabric of the city? And then marketing downtown as a unique place, a place that had life, a place that had a lot of interest rather than. There is something inherently wrong with downtown and so we need to destroy it and build something new. Cause I think, that was the basic premise they were working under, that there is something wrong with what we have, and um really I think it was more, I think there is something wrong with the condition of what we have. We need to clean-up fix-up and start playing up on our strengths, rather than trying to copy what is being done in the suburbs. That if we become a suburb, that somehow that will work. And I think that the ultimate sort of decline of the malls downtown is an indication of that that was a temporary fix and so while, I guess in some ways that's a success, its not a long-term success, its not something that will keep you city alive over the long-term.

No one would put Wal-marts in their city or any of these big box stores, if they didn't need the tax base and if they didn't need to accomodate their citizens who want their convinces by their homes, a lot of them do, of course not all of them do. Of coarse we had the vote here in Sandy City and the majority a ruled out. and umm.

With that in mind, how did the cities able to survive before the big boxes?

Well not every other city had big box you know, for instance, I've been kind of following the Heber situation up there and from what I understand, from what I read in the paper what the criticism there is, the citizens up there are shopping Park City, shopping Provo on their way home, and consequently Heber is suffering because they aren't getting the tax base. You know I mean they have their old historic Main Street, which is wonderful, its a beautiful area, but you wonder how. Unfortunately, with what their businesses can do, the large businesses, Target and Wal-Mart and K-Mart, they buy the stuff cheaper than these other retailers can...They put it on sale cheaper than the other u independents can buy it from the distributor, and its unfortunate, but what do you do? If Sandy doesn't have a wal-mart than 2:45 While the wal-mart was being built up here, the wal-mart was already built in South Jordan. I guarantee you that well over fifty percent of the people who were shopping the Wal-Mart in South Jordan were Sandy people, you know

The unfortunate thing with cities is that you don't, you don't get together and say ok you take the Wal-Marts and we will take the Target and you take the TFI Fridays and we will take the Chilis, the thing that has happened is that everybody has those,

and if you don't have them then you loose, so its just kind of a battle between the cities..

and some people might tell you that, well I'm doing it for the convenience of my neighbors. I belive that its basically tax dollars, that they think about when they put these big users in. Because the convience, if it wasn't for that, the convenience of us shopping at quarry bend and us running down to South Jordan is about sixes, because it was really far away. So we could have not put one in, and our citizens, could go to South Jordan, but?

Why did the Wal-Mart go out of business across the street from the South Town mall?

Well it didn't go out of business, it was just too small.
Now they are building these super Wal-Marts.

Couldn't have the City Council or Mayor force them to use that space?
Well they are taring it down and they will be building a new strip mall there, and there will be some cafes and as a matter of fact, I think they are in the process of taring it down right now. 4:50 You know, this is what would have happened. And I believe what was one of the big driving forces is that Wal-Mart didin't intend on staying in Sandy. And we can't force them to stay here. They had already sold that store before all of this, most of this took place. They had already sold that store and their intentinons were to build that store in South Jordan and another in Sandy. They weren't going to stay on State Street. So if we would have denied the zone, they simply would have not been in Sandy, they would have gone out of Sandy. At least that's their claim

What was the major flaw in the thinking of Save our Communities and their fight to stop Wal-Mart?

Well I don't think that they had a major flaw, I think that they did one heck of a job. um you know they got, you know, they got 47 percent of vote. I think what it boiled down to is that there were a few more people who wanted the convenience of Wal-Mart and the benefits of Wal-Mart in their community as opposed to those who didn't.

6:00 Their fight against it, in your mind, wasn't a negative thing it was a positive?

Yea in my mind it was the citizens doing what ever constitutionally they could do. Did it make it tough on me? Yea, that battle was tough. That battle was hard. And would it have been much easier on me if it would have just been in a room and we would have voted on it? Yea. But, I'm glad...It was interesting to me to see the process follow through. And, you know regardless of them losing they made a historic statement, that hasn't been made in the state of Utah before, and, you know I was interested and pleased to have a part of that. I voted for the development. But to see our system in work was great, I thought.

Its clear the new Wal-Mart in quarry bend is just as they promised. Its a really upscale development. The building are much higher end, than the old stores, but down below 9400 South you've have Fred Meyer, Albertsons, Big Lots and the Sandy Mall and they are all vacated now, they are basically left, the casualties
Yea looks like a ghost-town.
With that being the case, do you think it was a heaty price to get that Wal-Mart there?

I don't think that them closing had anything to do with Wal-Mart. Fred Meyers closed long before Wal-Mart was announced and Albersons just recently, but they wanted to stay there. The manager of this Albertsons and the one on 21st east are the same. And it might pay for you to go and talk to him. But they tried to negotiate a deal to stay there because they wanted to stay there; I wished they would have thats where I shop. But the lease holder, the person who holds the lease on that property wouldn't deal with them. And so that is the reason why they left.

[ unresolved question: why wouldn't the lease holder allow them to stay? Isn't Albertsons the lease holder if they are using the property?]

Here are some intersting statistics I'm going to give you. I had our council director go to the Wal-Mart and take a survey of the people who shop at wal-Mart and he surveyed 300 people, which is what Dan Jones does when he wants to do a survey of people. And interestingly enough, the Fred Meyers. Well first off, twenty percent of the people were from out of our city. Fourty two percent of the people who shopped at Wal-Mart no no I take that back. Fifty percent of the people who shopped Wal-Mart were east of 7th East.
The new wal-mart
no the old wal-mart the one on state street.
Fourty-two percent , now this is an interesting figure I think, fourty-two percent of the people who shopped wal-mart lived in the address from 9400 South to 8600 South from 7th east to 13th east, now that is right in the heart of where quarry bend is. And that's right in the heart of where the people were who were protesting it. They drove right by Fred Meyers to shop wal-mart, was it my fault Fred Meyers went out of business. And like I said, they went out before it was even announced.
It was due to the old Wal-Mart that Fred Meyer went out of business.
Absolutly

10:21
And umm, I shopped Fred Meyers. I don't shop at Wal-Mart because of labor issues. I've been a union person for lots and lots of years and I've formed unions and I've been the head of the Jordan School Union for a long time. So their labor issues upset me a lot so I don't shop there.
Why couldn't they do this development, in one of those blighted areas though? You said that Fred Meyer closed years ago.
Well not years ago, well I guess it has been years now. But yea about a year before this thing even took place.
Well the thing that we were told was that it wasn't a big enough area [check this fact] we were told that it wasn't a big enough area for what they needed. and the other stores. And in effect that question was asked. And in fact I met with those people about umm oh about three months into this process. I had a meeting with their people and the Boyer Company and I introduced a piece of property over by where the soccer stadium is going. I tried to get them to go there. I actually tired to get them to go there. Because really, you get on that property and there is no better visibility for anything. And the soccer stadium will be able to been seen all the way from Salt Lake City, you can see Antelope island from that area. 11:58 But they said it was too close to their South Jordan store and it was too close to their Midvale store. So I don't agree with that, I didn't agree with that then and I don't agree with it now.
Sugarhouse and Heber are now trying to stop Wal-mart from developing in their communities.
The citizens
Yea the citizens are, no the city council members, umm, they are afraid that Wal-mart will put many of their local businesses under. Do you see this as a valid fear?
Sure, yea I do, no question I do.
Why is that.
Well I think it is just like we discussed before, if you have a grocery store, I think that Main Street has two or three of those grocery stores. Their sales items are less than what Wal-mart is buying them wholesale for and so. And you know and I guess fortunate or not. With how tough it is to make a living these days and with how tough it is to make ends meet, When it comes to money I don't think that there is any loyalty, I think people just. you know. There is a grocery store that they have been shopping at for. Well, it happened here in Sandy. But it wasn't Wal-Mart that put the old Sandy stores out of business, it was Albertsons and Safeways thirty years ago. We used to have a little grocery store right up the street here, a block up the street, and we had one right here at the end of the street, that serviced Sandy for many, many, many years but they couldn't stay in competition, they left when Albertsons and Safeways come forty years ago, they couldn't compete.
So its just people want to have the local shops there, but they aren't willing enough to be loyal to them
I don't think so do you?
no
I mean don't you see that as the problem. I mean this building right here, its a new building now but it used to be Sandy Hardware, I could have went in there and bought a shovel for 15 bucks but I could buy the same dang shovel at some place even like big lot for three bucks. I mean are you going to be loyal for 13 bucks for 12 bucks? I mean your loyalty goes out the window pretty quick for 12 bucks.[laughing]

According to the institute for local self reliance, three times as much money stays in the local economy when you buy goods and services from locally owned businesses instead of large chain stores. In light of these statistics do you think that City Councils should be doing all that they can to be helping local merchants and businesses?

Umm, well I don't know those statistics, I don't know what they are. When you can visually see what goes on, its hard to believe those statistics. But um, because, I don't know what they mean.

I think it is basically because these chain stores headquarters are back east and all of their profits are going back east, whereas if its a local business, their profits are staying here and being redistibuted.

Well you know, I don't know how that works either because they have to pay sales tax and sales tax has to be distributed on an even keel here and property taxes they pay here. The employees all live here and they all spend their money here, that doesn't go back east. The customers are all here, so I don't know. I mean that seems kind of odd to me. What you have just said seems not realistic to me, but then I'm not, I didn't do the research.

My last question is, what do you think that City Councils can do to help their local merchants as more big boxes and chain stores move in?

Well I believe, like Sandy. And see here again. I mean people seem to just be focusing on Wal-Mart but Lowes is in there too. Its also a big box, but uu, what we have tried to do, we have tried to get a master plan put together for that whole area to see if we can help..In fact we just had a meeting, if you noticed just accross the street, that strip mall that you are talking about. They are revamping their whole mall. Those people who just bought that mall, and they bought that mall just after the whole wal-mart issue; they look at that Wal-mart as a positive. Because the more traffic, the more visibility they have, the better, they are thinking. On the other side of the street for some reason those things aren't happening. For some reason the lease holder is just content with letting those building sit vacant. The guy who bought those properties is a guy who sits as one of our board of directors, Dave Malstrom, and I talked to him about it the other 18:00 day and he said that they wont even return his calls. and cause he is concerned about it, I mean that is part of his livelihood.
You mean he has a vested interested in it?
Yea he owns all the property
Where the old Wal-mart is or where the Fred Meyer is?
No where the Fred Meyers and that is and the Albersons and that. You know the old Albertsons and the Desert Industry. He owns all that property and he leases it, and its a big part of his income, probably all of it.
And I talked to him and asked him, I said whats going on Dave, whats happening up there? And he says I don't know, they wont return my calls, so I don't know what they are doing. But as long as they hold the lease, there is nothing he can do about it. He is still gettting his money. He is still getting the same amount of money, he is still getting paid. [bad audio]
And they don't want to try and get out of the lease?
No they don't want to try and get out of it. you know and Albertsons is the same, they just continue to pay him. But he is afraid that at the end of the thing, they just walk away and leave him with what he has got there and no income coming in. So, um we don't really know what is going on there. We even had our economic developer, developer Randy Sim try to contact him and they wont even contact and talk to us.
Has their lease expired?
I think that they have several more years on the lease, I think they had the lease for thirty years. But man you [bad audio] think that a business could do that for thirty years.
And we talked about one time, which I'm opposed to, because this is not an RDA area. I mean the main criteria for RDA is that its in an area that wont draw economic impact on its own merit. This area will, and the talk at one time was letting Wal-mart come in on an RDA, well they didn't want it, Boyer said, "no we don't want to do that." And so did both of the other malls, they said, "no we don't want to be involved in RDAs." So basically what you do is, you defer their taxes for a period of time.

Well they don't have to pay demolition costs right?
uuumm Well yea, yea that could be a part of it
If they build something brand new they won't have to pay to clear the building
yea, but the biggest thing is the deferment of taxes, for twenty years or what ever it may be, but none of them wanted it so. But we're right now in the process of trying to get cooperation in master planning the area and we just give these folks over here on the South side some concessions with building permits and things like that where they can move along instead of being tied down with a bunch of bureaucracy and things like that you know. And so we just encourage our Chamber of Commerce to continue on and work as hard as they can and we support them every year with a grant every year to convince people to stay in Sandy every year. My father, my father 50 years ago one two of the only business in Sandy and they both folded. And one reason was because he wasn't a very good business man and another reason is because there wasn't anyone to help him and teach him how to be a businessman. He owned a cafe and he owned a bar and both of them went broke and that was our livelihood, so.

Well thanks a lot.