MOUNTAIN to METRO
SALT LAKE CITY
By now you’ve probably heard: Salt Lake City is the worldwide headquarters of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, colloquially known as the Mormons. A second but equally powerful and popular Utah faith is skiing, and here in this state skiers are twice blessed. Frequent storms consistently deliver featherlight, desert-dried powder measured in feet rather than inches all winter long. And our mountains’ spitting-distance proximity to a blossoming metropolitan area replete with cultural, gastronomic and nightlife opportunities on the level of many of the U.S.’s most vibrant cities means we can have our cake and eat it too.
Urban Utah
Once a victim of suburban sprawl, downtown Salt Lake City has transformed itself into a hip and vibrant destination. Thriving and diverse restaurants, independent shops and galleries now line Main Street, 200 and 300 South. Travel downtown’s navigable grid layout a few blocks to the west and you’ll find The Gateway, an open-air mall housing national retailers, movie theaters, the Clark Planetarium and the Discovery Gateway Children’s Museum. And in the shadow of the Salt Lake Temple is the long awaited City Creek Center, one of the country’s largest mixed-use down- town redevelopment projects featuring high-roller retailers like Tiffany & Co., Michael Kors, Nordstrom and Coach.
Après Elevated
But perhaps the best reason to make Salt Lake City your proverbial base camp is the amount of art and culture jam-packed into such a neat and tidy radius. The Utah Museum of Contemporary Art or UMOCA (801-328-4201,
utahmoca.org) was recognized as the state’s best museum in 2011. Abravanel Hall (801-323-6800) is home to the venerable Utah Symphony (utahsymphony. org). Ballet West (
balletwest.org) and the Utah Opera (
utahopera.org) perform at the historic Capitol Theatre. Utah’s homegrown alternative Plan-B Theatre Company (
planbtheatre.org), two modern dance companies and the Gina Bachauer International Piano Foundation (
gina.bachauer.com) are among the performing arts outfits housed at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center. Find tickets for these and other Salt Lake performing arts offerings through ArtTix (801-355-ARTS,
arttix.org). On the third Friday of every month—in December it’s held on the first Friday—galleries throughout downtown prop open their doors and uncork wine for the monthly gallery stroll (
gallerystroll.org). “The Olympics were obviously a big turning point for Utah, but arts in all mediums have always been valued here. The Games simply helped broaden and enrich the options,” says Tori Baker, executive director of the Salt Lake Film Society (801-321-0310,
saltlakefilmsociety.org). The Natural History Museum of Utah (801-581-4303,
nhmu.utah.edu) is home to an amazing experience in exploring Utah’s natural landscape. From the earliest life on our planet to the peoples who populated Utah, you’ll wander through the ages. Oh yeah. There’s dinosaurs. And though it’s not considered culture, the NBA Jazz definitely attract the faithful in Utah, playing to deafening crowds throughout the winter at Energy Solutions Arena (
nba.com/jazz).
Natural History Museum of Utah Urban Lounge Bar Hopping
Riding shotgun to Salt Lake’s mushrooming arts community is a healthy bar and social scene, given new life in 2009 when Utah lawmakers finally abandoned once infamous membership rules. Take advantage of this new liberalism by sampling a few of downtown’s more trendy watering holes. The Red Door (801-363-6030,
behindthereddoor.com) is an intimate martini lounge frequented by Salt Lake’s LGBT crowd and was recently named a “best bar” by Esquire magazine. Get your groove on to live music in various genres including rock, hip-hop, alternative and reggae at Urban Lounge (
theurbanloungeslc.com) or The State Room (
thestateroom.com). For a more laid back, pub-like encounter, belly up to the antique bar at the Beerhive (801-364-4268) where they serve more than 150 labels from around the world.
Did 70
skiutah.com KNOW You
• Salt Lake City is set up on a grid where the streets run north-south and east-west. Beginning at Temple Square, streets are named and numbered
starting with 100, 200, 300 and so on in the direction they move along the grid. For example, the intersection of 700 East and 600 South is seven blocks east and six blocks south of Temple Square. (You’ll hear locals use verbal shorthand “seventh east and sixth south” to refer to the same address.)
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