Christie Porter has worked as a journalist for nearly a decade, writing about everything under the sun, but she really loves writing about nerdy things and the weird stuff. She recently published her first comic book short this year.
The Redevelopment Agency of Salt Lake City (RDA) has released the Rio Grande District Vision & Implementation Plan, revealing the future vision for the Rio Grande District in Salt Lake City. The area contains about 11 acres of RDA-owned property in Downtown Salt Lake City, which will be transformed to include a portion of the “green loop,” public art spaces and residential, retail and maker’s spaces, a new hotel and space for nonprofit operations.
This vision for an urban, walkable community will be flanked by the State’s multimodal transit hub and the historic Rio Grande Depot. The six-chapter plan is a result of the city’s partnership with global architecture and design firm Perkins & Will. Which, Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall says, “Thoughtfully addresses the neighborhood’s past, present and future. Technically, it identifies and explores functional designs for spaces and buildings that will advance creativity, community wellness, economic growth and opportunities for all.”
The planned new developments in the Rio Grande District also aligns with Mayor Mendenhall’s “Tech Lake City” initiative (which is meant to develop Salt Lake City into a pipeline for tech and life sciences industries) by providing incubator, laboratory and office spaces.
Plan for walkability and transit
The Rio Grande District will bolster and add to the so-called “Green Loop,” the City’s proposed 5.5-mile urban trail and park, which connects multiple downtown neighborhoods and will run through the RDA site along 500 West.
The “Green Loop” is a proposed 5.5 mile urban trail and linear park that would connect to the Rio Grande District. (Courtesy Perkins & Will)
“Designed as a low-carbon community, it leverages its proximity to a variety of transportation choices and provides a healthy walkable environment,” says Geeti Silwal, Principal and Urban Design Practice Leader for Perkins & Will. They plan for the re-development area to serve as a bridge between Downtown and neighborhoods west of downtown.
The Rio Grande Distrisct plan also includes the creation of new mid-block street connections to break up larger blocks and form connections to transit (like the adjacent Utah Transit Authority Salt Lake Central Station and the proposed Orange Line) and public spaces, such as the planned transformation of 300 South into a people-first “Festival” street. This would allow the street to be closed to vehicle traffic and programmed for events and an Arts Campus Alley, an outdoor venue for local arts and performances.
“It’s always an exciting and unique opportunity when we get to invest in the future of our communities,” says District 2 Salt Lake City Council Member and RDA Board Chair Alejandro Puy. “I am thrilled to support this transit-oriented development that lay the groundwork for an accessible and bustling area in our city.”
The Rio Grande District plan sustainable strategies include building orientation for optimal building performance, climatic comfort, and biophilia; preservation and revitalization of existing buildings on-site; on-site stormwater management, permeable surfaces within the public spaces and a central underground stormwater collection cistern to reuse for landscape irrigation; policies for all new development to be designed and operated without on-site fossil fuels; and low-carbon mobility network. (Courtesy Perkins & Will)
What’s next?
To accommodate the first phase of development, the RDA plans to lay the groundwork by upgrading utilities to support higher density at the site.
According to the plan, the development will be built in phases “over many years” and could change, dependent on the market and available funding.
Phase 1. Development is focused on the southeastern portion of the site, including:
Construction of Market Street and a segment of Woodbine Court.
Major mobility and access improvements to the existing 300 south (Festival Street) and 400 South Frontage Road rights-of-way.
Construction of the southern portion of the Arts Campus plaza and possible plaza along 500 West.
Phase 2. Development is focused on the reopening of the Rio Grande Depot and adding housing onto the site, including:
Construction of Pierpont Avenue from 600 West to Woodbine Court and the nortnern segment or Woodbine Court from 300 South to Eccles Avenue.
Completion of the Rio Grande Depot renovation with State of Utah departments and additional civic tenants moving into the Depot along with a publicly accessible grand concourse with new active uses.
New multi-family residential projects with active uses on the ground floor.
Anticipated construction or commercial mixed-use high-rise tower. The project can accommodate a tech anchor tenant in an urban campus setting or multiple tenants including allowances for new wet and dry lab spaces to support Tech Lake City initiative.
Phase 3. Development is focused on the parcels adjacent to Salt Lake Central Station and the Green Loop:
Reconfiguration of 500 West as a multi-modal street, including improved intersections at 400 South and 200 South.
The construction of the Green Loop urban trail and linear park on the eastern portion of 500 West.
Phase 4. Development is focused on the landmark mixed-use residential tower on 500 West and the mixed-use development along the 400 South Overpass:
Construction of the northern portion of the Arts Campus plaza.
Construction of permanent park programming at the 400 south underpass such as dog park and soccer courts.
Construction of the landmark residential mixed-use tower along 500 West and 300 South.
For each re-development site, the RDA says it is prioritizing projects that include climate-positive design, affordable housing for families and seniors, affordable commercial spaces for locally-owned businesses and the creation of educational and workforce development opportunities. As far as exactly how those stated priorities will manifest in this particular development, time will tell.
The RDA says it is currently developing construction drawings for the development and plans to release a Request for Proposals (RFP) from developers later this year to start building out select sites on the north block. For more information, visit slcrda.com/riograndedistrict.
You know summer is almost here when we start talking about the Utah Arts Festival. This year, the Utah Arts Festival will return to Salt Lake City June 28-30, 2024 to celebrate visual art, music, dance, film and community.
Friday, the Utah Arts Festival announced its headlining musical acts that will perform on the main festival stages throughout the weekend, including acts like Andy Frasco & the U.N. and Steely Dead.
“The Utah Arts Festival has a long history of presenting high-quality musical acts, many of whom are on the rise when they performed at the Festival and have since gone on to critical acclaim in their respective genres,” says Festival executive director, Aimee Dunsmore. Those acts that have gone on to the big-time include Brandi Carlile, Jason Isbell and Ben Harper.
“That’s part of the magic of this event, and this year’s slate is no different,” says Dunsmore. “Our 2024 musical headliners represent our desire to create a vibrant, welcoming and fun-loving environment where the community can come together and where art comes to life.” Festival organizers say that these incredible shows—and the community that turns out to engage with them—are what makes the Utah Arts Festival truly “the Great Utah Get-Together.”
Steely Dead performs two sets on the Festival’s Amphitheater Stage. A 4-piece ensemble hailing from Denver, Colorado, Steely Dead is renowned for their unique blend of Grateful Dead and Steely Dan, performing soulful renditions of classic tunes.
Korean artist Seo Jungmin performs on the Festival Stage, offering a truly unique opportunity to see this artist. Having performed at SXSW, WOMEX and WOMAD, Seo Jungmin blends traditional and contemporary sounds with her 25-string Gayageum, shamanic vocals and percussion mesmerizing audiences. (This performance is made possible in part through the Performing Arts Global Exchange Program of Mid-Atlantic Arts with support from the National Endowment for the Arts.)
Andy Frasco of Andy Frasco & the U.N.
Saturday, June 29: Cool Cool Cool and Andy Frasco & the U.N.
Cool Cool Cool and Andy Frasco & the U.N. funk it up with a double bill on Festival’s scenic Amphitheater Stage. The colorful heart-thumping fun of Andy Frasco will pump up this summer’s Saturday night at the Utah Arts Festival. Andy Frasco & the U.N. are trailblazing DIY rebels within the touring circuit, celebrated for their dynamic musical fusion and unparalleled stage presence. With their latest release, L’Optimist (Fun Machine Records/Soundly), the band showcases Andy Frasco’s horn-infused positivity and power.
“I fight depression every single day,” Frasco shares. “Optimism is my weapon against it. I write optimistic songs because they keep me moving forward. We’re all in this together, and everyone needs a little optimism to persevere.” Andy Frasco & The U.N. continue to captivate audiences worldwide with their infectious energy and heartfelt message, proving that optimism and music are powerful catalysts for change.
Cool Cool Cool
In between their Northlands Music & Arts Festival in New Hampshire and High Sierra Music Festival in California, Cool Cool Cool will stop off in Salt Lake City to stir up the Utah Arts Festival. A genre-defying force, Cool Cool Cool (former members of Turkuaz) seamlessly blends funk, house and R&B to craft a unique and energetic sound–fronted by dynamic vocals and backed by a tight horn section, swirling synths, and a groove-laden rhythm section.
The Plastic Cherries
Sunday, June 30: The Plastic Cherriesandfuture.exboyfriend
The Plastic Cherries and future.exboyfriend will take the Festival by storm with indie electro-pop flair. The Plastic Cherries began as a home recording project making songs on old tape machines. Inspired by glam, soft rock, shoegaze, Elliott Smith, and their dog, Shelby and Joe Maddock formulated their first album, Sunshine, and evolved to include pianist Natalie Hamilton, drummer Wayne Burdick and bassist Stephen Cox. You can hear the pop sensibility and experience the theatrics of their heroes in one compact act. Homegrown in SLC and included in 2023’s Kilby Block Party, they have shared festival stages with the Pixies, The Strokes and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs among others. Their new album beginning with Lovers On The Run is an expansive sequel to their lo-fi debut, telling a psychedelic story of escape and return invoking Ziggy Stardust, Rock Horror, and the B-52s.
future.exboyfriend
Anotherup-and-coming Utah local, future.exboyfriend has carved out an addictive indie-pop sound with a side of funk and disco. Lead singer Tyler Harris offers soaring vocals and thoughtful lyrics to create a sound with Isaac Paul and Ian Kirby. Their latest album, FXB, is driven by this unique electro-pop groove and percussive bass lines. Just try not to dance to songs like “High at the Gym” and “Hazy.”
Additional artists, performers, and films will be announced in the coming weeks. For more information visit The Utah Arts Festival website uaf.org.
On the grand stage of national politics, Utah is a bit player. We are one of the least densely populated, most reliably conservative states with middling voter participation rates and are currently embroiled in a gerrymandering lawsuit. However, Utah’s seeming political insignificance is something of a smokescreen, and the monolithic nature of Utah’s long-held political beliefs is an illusion. Utah politicians have amassed power and influence that penetrated state borders and directed the country to where it is today. We are taking a look at the Utah men throughout history who made it into “the room where it happens,” as Hamilton so succinctly put it, and what they did when they got there.
Political Ideology With Parallels Today
On June 17, 1930, President Herbert Hoover signed The Smoot-Hawley Tariff in the wake of Black Tuesday, the stock market crash that marks the impetus of the Great Depression. Utah Senator Reed Smoot lent his name to the Tariff, as the chair of the Senate Finance Committee during the months of odious debates, amendment votes, reversals, in-fighting, backroom-dealing and special interest lobbying that preceded the bill’s passage. (Sound familiar?) At best, the act failed at what its authors initially set out to do—help the struggling agriculture sector. At worst, the Tariff takes the blame for exacerbating the Great Depression.
If the act sounds familiar, it might be because Smoot’s namesake was invoked in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986) and again in 2017. A Washington Post columnist who declared “The ghost of Smoot-Hawley seems to haunt President Trump” was not the only one who compared President Trump’s tariffs and protectionism to the 1930 bill.
In 1929, when the tariff negotiations began, Smoot had a reputation as an “exceptionally capable and indefatigable legislator,” according to Douglas A. Irwin of the National Bureau of Economic Research. By 1932, Smoot had lost reelection, but he defended his tariff with the zeal of a religious crusade. “Even if one disagrees with Smoot’s strict protectionist doctrine, one can understand and admire the tenacity with which he pursued his goal,” concludes James B. Allen, former LDS Church historian and BYU professor of history. “He had one great characteristic that some will admire and others scoff at…his overwhelming confidence in his own wisdom and ability.”
This clip, retrieved from El Paso Herald, December 16, 1929 illustrates how unpopular the Smoot-Hawley tariffs were on a national scale. Courtesy of Newspapers.com
That confidence allowed Smoot to lead “Utah’s march into the national mainstream,” as Utah Historic Quarterly put it, and to be “successful in placing many Utahns in positions of national prominence,” as stated in Smoot’s failed reelection campaign. Outside of the impact of his policies (soon undone after he left the Senate), Smoot’s legacy is forging a path to power for future representatives of the frontier West.
Elbert D. Thomas, the Utah senator who replaced Smoot, took office during worst economic crisis the country had ever seen. Thomas worked to create a New Deal work-relief program that employed millions of young men in environmental projects and national parks, as chair of the Senate Committee on Education and Labor, and the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, establishing the 40-hour work week, overtime pay, a minimum wage and a legal working age.
Thomas’s secretary, Elaine F. Hatch, said of her “beloved” senator’s legacy, “This Nation may have totally collapsed and foundered except for the dedicated efforts and activities of men like President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Marriner Eccles and Senator Elbert D. Thomas.”
In today’s political climate, as well as in the 1930s, the mindset of a Utah banker might seem incongruous with the top-down economic policy of the New Deal, but Marriner Eccles was different. Eccles said “frontier economic philosophy” guided him until the Great Depression, when he changed his mind and chose not to double down on a failed philosophy. In 1933, Eccles testified before the Senate Committee on Finance, saying, “The orthodox capitalistic system of uncontrolled individualism, with its free competition, will no longer serve our purpose. We must think in terms of the scientific, technological, interdependent machine age, which can only survive and function under a modified capitalistic system controlled and regulated from the top by the government.”
The young banker from Utah proposed a bold five-point plan to fix the economy. F.D.R. gave Eccles a job in the U.S. Treasury Department and then, in 1934, the job as chair of the Federal Reserve. His plan became the inspiration for New Deal programs. While the New Deal did not end the Depression, “It restored a sense of security as it put people back to work. It created the framework for a regulatory state that could protect the interests of all Americans, rich and poor…It rebuilt the infrastructure of the United States, providing a network of schools, hospitals and roads,” said historian Allan Winkler in his own 2009 testimony to the U.S. Senate.
Eccles pushed to reform the Fed and create the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Federal Housing Act (FHA). While the FHA allowed many Americans to obtain housing, it did not extend those benefits to generations of Black Americans in a process known as “redlining.” Eccles’ legacy includes some insights relevant to post-Great Recession America, as noted by Mark Wayne Nelson in Jumping the Abyss: Marriner S. Eccles and the New Deal, 1933–1940. Eccles advocated for centralized banking regulation and believed it would “prove effective in establishing a sound financial sector…One imagines that were he with us today he might assert that the remarkable financial stability that has distinguished the first three decades following the New Deal, and the turbulence that marked the years 2007 and 2008, has validated this conviction.”
– 1870 – Utah’s Impact on Voting Rights
Utah Territory holds the first elections in which women could vote in the U.S. Seraph Young is the first woman to cast a ballot. Utah women lost voting rights with the passing of the Edmunds-Tucker Act of 1887.
Seraph Young (Ford)
– 1894 – Joining the Union
Congress passes the Utah Enabling Act, admitting Utah into the Union contingent upon its banning polygamy and other mandates.
– 1896 – Utah Statehood
Utah becomes the 45th state in the Union after publicly forgoing polygamy. The right for women to vote and to hold public office is written into the state constitution.
Dr. Martha Hughes Cannon
– 1898 – Women’s Suffrage
Utah State Senator and suffragist, Dr. Martha Hughes Cannon testifies to the success of women’s suffrage in Utah before a U.S. congressional committee.
Reed Smoot
– 1903 – Credentials in Question
Reed Smoot is elected to the Senate. His ability to serve as a senator is challenged due to his leadership role within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, leading to the Reed Smoot Hearings.
William H. King
– 1917 > 1919 – Polygamist Denied Senate Seat
William H. King of Salt Lake City replaces B. H. Roberts, who was unseated over polygamy. King also serves on the Overman Committee, which investigated “un-American” activities during WWI.
Justice George Sutherland
– 1922 – One of the ‘Four Horsemen’ of the U.S. Supreme Court
The Senate confirms the nomination of George Sutherland to the U.S. Supreme Court. He is the first and only Utahn to so far serve on the Supreme Court. During his tenure, he becomes known as one of the court’s “Four Horseman,” a group of conservative justices who rule against some of F.D.R.’s New Deal policies.
– 1930 – The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act
The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, cosponsored by Senator Reed Smoot (then chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance), is signed into law. The act raises U.S. tariffs on more than 20,000 imported goods to record levels, and other countries raise their tariffs in retaliation. It is widely blamed for prolonging the Great Depression.
Marriner Eccles
– 1934 – The Father of the Modern Federal Reserve
F.D.R. appoints Marriner S. Eccles, a Utah banker, as chairman of the Federal Reserve. Eccles advocates for policies that become the architecture of the New Deal. By restructuring the Fed, he becomes known as “the father of the modern Federal Reserve.” He is the son of industrialist David Eccles’ and Eccles’ second wife, Ellen Stoddard Eccles.
Elbert D. Thomas
– 1937 – New Deal
Elbert Thomas of Salt Lake City becomes chairman of the Senate Committee on Education and Labor. He introduces part of the New Deal legislation and serves on New Deal committees.
Arthur Watkins
– 1953 – Leading the Tribal Termination Movement
Utah Senator Arthur Watkins spearheads the assimilation of native tribes and the tribal termination movement, authoring bills that unrecognize and relocate 60 tribes across the country.
Ezra Taft Benson
– 1953 – Secretary of Agriculture
President Dwight Eisenhower appoints Ezra Taft Benson as Secretary of Agriculture. Benson opposes government price controls and aid to farmers, arguing that it amounts to socialism and drawing the ire of farmers across the country and at home in Utah and Idaho.
Ivy Baker Priest
– 1953 – United States Treasurer
President Dwight Eisenhower also appoints Ivy Baker Priest of Utah as Treasurer.
Joe McCarthy
– 1954 – Censuring McCarthy
Arthur Watkins is chair of the Select Committee to Study Censure Charges against Joseph McCarthy, voting to censure McCarthy for conduct unbecoming of a senator.
Esther Eggertsen Peterson
– 1961 > 1963 – Equal Pay for Equal Work
President John F. Kennedy calls up Esther Eggertsen Peterson, a labor organizer and lobbyist from Utah, to be Director of the U.S. Women’s Bureau and later the Assistant Secretary of Labor. She crusades for the Equal Pay Act of 1963.
Frank “Ted” Moss
– 1965 – Consumer Protection
Utah Senator Frank “Ted” Moss champions the Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act, creating requirements for cigarette package labels and banning cigarette advertisements. As chair of the Consumer Subcommittee, Moss sponsors numerous consumer protection acts that become law.
David M. Kennedy
– 1969 – Short-lived Term in the Treasury
David Kennedy of Utah serves as Secretary of the Treasury and later as the U.S. Ambassador to NATO, after losing the favor of President Richard Nixon.
Wayne Owens
– 1973 – Taking Nixon to Task
Wayne Owens of Panguitch is elected to U.S. Congress. While in Congress, Owens fights to impeach Richard Nixon for the Watergate scandal, despite Nixon’s popularity among Utahns.
Utah’s Faithful Fight the ERA
– 1976 > 1977 – Equal Rights Amendment
LDS Church leaders direct anti-Equal Rights Amendment campaigns in 21 states outside of Utah, collecting funds for Families Are Concerned Today. Their efforts often receive credit for defeating the ERA.
MX Missle Protest
– 1979 > 1980 – The Mormon Church and the MX Missile
The Carter administration plans to have the Air Force store new MX missiles on bases in Utah. LDS Church leadership releases a statement against the missile bases, after which opposition to base in Utah increases by 21% and the plan does not move forward.
Jake Garn
– 1981 > 1982 – Banking Deregulation
Jake Garn of Utah becomes chair of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs. As chair, Garn co-authors the Garn–St. Germain Depository Institutions Act of 1982. The law deregulates the savings and loan industry in an attempt to thwart the ’80s S&L crisis. The Act directly contributes to the conditions that cause the 2007 Subprime Mortgage Crisis.
Orrin Hatch
– 1988 > 1990 – An Unlikely Supporter of AIDS Funding + Research
Orrin Hatch of Utah gathers support to pass the Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) Research and Information Act. Two years later, Hatch co-sponsors the Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency (CARE) Act.
– 1990 – ADA
Hatch proves instrumental in ushering the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) through a gridlocked U.S. Senate with the passage of the Hatch Amendment.
– 1994 – DSHEA
Hatch authors the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act, which deregulates the dietary and herbal supplements industry.
– 1997 – CHIP
Hatch works with Ted Kennedy to create the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) to cover uninsured children whose family’s often do not qualify for Medicaid in their states.
– 1998 – Opposing Gay Marriage
The Hawaii legislature passes a bill that bans gay marriage, following the lobbying efforts of the LDS Church and other religious organizations.
– 2001 – The Patriot Act
Orrin Hatch introduces the controversial USA PATRIOT Act in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Some of the bill’s provisions are later struck down in legal challenges for violating individuals’ constitutional and civil rights.
Mitt Romney
– 2012 – On the Main Stage
Utah’s political visibility appears to be at an all-time high. Former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman Jr. (and at times serving as U.S. Ambassador to Singapore, China or Russia) makes a bid for the presidency, and future Utah Senator Mitt Romney secures the Republican nomination but loses the general election to Barack Obama.
Orrin Hatch
– 2018 – Long Legacy
Orrin Hatch announces his retirement from the Senate. He is Utah’s longest-serving senator, surpassing Reed Smoot’s record of 30 years. During his term, Hatch sponsors or co-sponsors nearly 800 pieces of legislation that pass into law. Mitt Romney succeeds Hatch.
Unmaking the New Deal
While Eccles went back to Utah during the Truman administration, he returned to Washington, D.C., in a fashion, when the building that houses the Fed was named for him. The provision to name it after Eccles came in a 1982 bill co-authored by Utah Senator Jake Garn. Perhaps ironically, given Eccles’ convictions, the Garn-St. Germaine Act deregulated financial institutions, removing some Depression-era restraints on savings and loans and allowing variable-rate mortgages. As with Smoot-Hawley, the legacy of the Garn-St. Germain Act is one of devastating, unintended consequences.
If this sounds familiar, VRMs were at the heart of the 2007 Subprime Mortgage Crisis, which preceded the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.
As economist Gillian Garcia noted, “The Garn-St. Germain Act allowed lenders to make alternative mortgages, some of which proved to be problematic…unrestrained lenders offered infamous 2/28 adjustable-rate mortgages to entice subprime borrowers,” who then could not afford payments when the rate reset at a higher rate, and millions of people lost their homes.
Conspiracy Thinking
Eccles’ policies as Fed Chair drew the same sort of shallow criticism that we see in American politics today, when one congresswoman told him, “You just love socialism.” During the Red Scare, such unfounded accusations abounded. Burgeoning McCarthyist fervor ended Sen. Elbert Thomas’s political career. Thomas advocated for accepting more Jewish refugees into the U.S. and against interning Japanese Americans during WWII. His inclinations toward global cooperation saw him labeled a communist sympathizer.
In 1953, one man with Utah ties came to Washington, D.C. with more zeal for rooting out communism than anyone, perhaps save for Sen. Joe McCarthy himself. When Ezra Taft Benson, a Mormon apostle, became President Dwight Eisenhower’s Secretary of Agriculture, he did not face the same scrutiny that Smoot endured. At the time, separation of church and state was not much of an issue, explains Dr. Gregory Prince, author of multiple books and essays on Mormon history. “The precedent of a high-ranking church official holding a high office in the federal government had been in place for decades,” says Prince. “I think what changed was the nature of the public’s perception of what churches should and should not do.”
Ezra Taft Benson boarding an airplane, cir. 1953. As agriculture secretary, he traveled through Western Europe, where he said he would try to pass on U.S. agriculture policies. Photo courtesy of Marriot Library.
The shift in perception might have come about in part because of Benson’s controversial politics. In his book, Watchman on the Tower: Ezra Taft Benson and the Making of the Mormon Right, Matthew Harris, professor of history at Colorado State University, details Benson’s political involvement and influence. Benson believed “he had a divine calling to warn Americans about the dangers of communism,” says Harris. As such, he created a secret surveillance system to catch suspected communists within his department. Benson also worked on dismantling the popular New Deal policies of price controls on farm goods and reducing agricultural subsidies, which he called socialism.
As Benson became entrenched in the John Birch Society, an ultraconservative anti-communist hate group, “Benson emerged as one of the leading anti-communist spokesmen in the United States,” says Harris. For Benson, the concepts of centralized government, socialism, social justice, atheism, etc., were lumped together under a communist conspiracy that he believed had infiltrated all levels of government and corrupted the American way of life.
Harris is careful to point out that Benson was not unique among his peers for embracing conspiracy theories, with one notable exception. Benson and his friend J. Rueben Clark—whose name is still on BYU’s law school—were “the only apostles who associated the conspiracy with Jews.” They made antisemitic claims that Jewish people established communism and the NAACP to promote racial integration, which Benson opposed. Benson’s political ambitions culminated in two failed presidential bids with two high-profile segregationists: Strom Thurmond and George Wallace.
Influence on Civil Rights
In 1898, Dr. Martha Hughes Cannon, the first woman to serve as a State Senator in Utah and the U.S., testified to the success of Utah’s equal suffrage before the House Judiciary Committee in Washington, D.C. Cannon declared that the women’s suffrage experiment was so successful that it “is no longer an experiment, but is a practical reality, tending to the well-being of the State,” and “Even those who opposed equal suffrage with the greatest ability and vehemence would not now vote for the repeal of the measure.”
The Utah Territory’s women were the first in the nation to cast their ballots. The comparatively early adoption of women’s right to vote and run for public office allowed Utah women to become powerful and vocal advocates for the national suffragist movement, Cannon among them, alongside household names like Susan B. Anthony. While nothing can purge Utah’s legacy as a state that pioneered women’s involvement in politics, Utah’s role as a civil rights leader would later transform into that of one of its most ardent detractors.
Anti-feminist spokesperson Phyllis Schlafly with Utah Senator Orrin Hatch at an Anti-ERA Gala, cir. 1979. Photo courtesy of Marriot Library.
Officials in Washington, D.C. were not the sole actors from Utah influencing national politics. The Utah-based religious organization, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (aka LDS Church or Mormon Church), has wielded its clout and deployed an obedient membership to sway national politics. Gregory Prince notes that the first time the LDS Church waded into a political issue and made a difference on a national level is with the defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment of 1972 (ERA).
The ERA would amend the U.S. Constitution to include, “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex,” and needed the approval of three-fourths of state legislatures to ratify. The Utah-based church (then led by Spencer W. Kimball) publicly justified its opposition to the ERA in 1976 when it needed only four more states’ approvals. The church considered the ERA not a political issue but a moral one. The church claimed that the ERA allowed for a “possible train of unnatural consequences” such as “encouragement of those who seek a unisex society, an increase in the practice of homosexual and lesbian activities, and other concepts which could alter the natural, God-given relationship of men and women.”
LDS Church leadership created a Special Affairs Committee to spearhead anti-ERA efforts in 21 states outside of Utah, where members collected funds for anti-ERA candidates, distributed pamphlets and organized letter-writing campaigns. Historian D. Michael Quinn wrote, “The results were numerically staggering.” Of the anti-ERA mail received by state legislators in Virginia, for instance, 85% of the letters were written by Mormons. They succeeded in swaying ERA “I think the ERA was when they honed their political skills, certainly,” says Prince. “And that same playbook came back in the marriage equality battle.” The Utah-based church once again mobilized to influence votes in other states—this time to oppose the legalization of gay marriage. “That started in Hawaii,” says Prince. The LDS Church “allied with the Catholic Church, very quietly, under a front organization called Hawaii’s Future Today,” says Prince. “It had a significant influence on the debate and the legislation that was going on in Hawaii.”
In Oct. 1958, a group of farmers from Utah and Idaho travel to D.C. to ask Ezra Taft Benson for much needed aid. Benson had the reputation of “a heartless ideologue who lacked sympathy for small farmers.” Photo courtesy of Utah Historical Society
The LDS Church followed similar patterns in 2000 with Proposition 22 and again in 2008 with Proposition 8, both in California. “When Proposition 8 came around, they jumped in with both feet,” says Prince. “They took a very public stand and had a considerable boots-on-the-ground initiative within the state.” Mormons’ financial contributions accounted for more than half of the money raised in support of Prop 8.
The LDS Church likewise declared this a moral issue, not a political one, and published its justification, called The Family: A Proclamation to the World. The document asserts that divine design only allows for a narrow definition of marriage, families and gender roles. The proclamation warns that living outside this definition “will bring upon…the calamities foretold by ancient and modern prophets.”
The promises of the unraveling of society are not unlike the arguments made against women’s rights. As Dr. Martha Hughes Cannon observed in her prescient testimony on women’s suffrage to Congress in 1898, “None of the unpleasant results, which were predicted, have occurred…[They] have all been found to be but the ghosts of unfounded prejudices.”
Some of women who lead the national suffragist movement 1848-1920. The 19th Amendment, which gave non-native women in the U.S. the right to vote, was ratified in 1920. Photo courtesy of Marriot Library.
Time Will Tell
Utah’s history of political influence could show that who wielded power was determined by the swing of the ideological pendulum. The same state that produced George Sutherland, who ruled against New Deal legislation as a Supreme Court Justice, elected Abe Murdock, a New Deal supporter; Republican Arthur Watkins replaced him, and Frank Moss, the last Democrat to represent Utah, replaced him. Moss lost reelection to Orrin Hatch. Had the pendulum stopped swinging?
“Utah began to swing to the right with the full aid of Benson,” says Prince. “And I think it’s kept going in that direction ever since. I think that’s where the genesis of it was, in the early 1960s, to the point now where Utah is one of the most reliably pro-Trump states in the country.”
That is not the sum of Utah’s political legacy. People—even politicians—are complex, and sometimes they break ideological ranks to great effect.
As a final example, take Sen. Watkins, who championed a policy that forcibly disconnected indigenous people from their culture and lands. But during his tenure in Congress he also headed a committee to censure Joe McCarthy, a move so unpopular in Utah that he likely lost his seat over it. What was right and what was wrong depends on not just who you ask but when. Legacy is our choices and all of the unintended consequences.
The 2024 Sundance Film Festival officially opens Thursday in Park City and Salt Lake City, and the full lineup includes more than 80 films that will be screening at this year’s festival, including film premieres and film entries competing in a variety of categories.
There is always hype around a handful of Sundance films before most people, including critics and industry insiders, even have a chance to see them, but one of the best parts of the Sundance Film Festival is the films that surprise us.
We spoke to Salt Lake magazine film contributors Michael Mejia and Jaime Winston to get their list of films that they think will make an impact this year, and we spoke with one of the people responsible for selecting Sundance’s film lineup. Heidi Zwicker is a Senior Programmer with Sundance Film Festival and she outlined some of the films that have her excited.
Kristen Stewart and Steven Yeun appear in Love Me by Sam Zuchero and Andy Zuchero, an official selection of the U.S. Dramatic Competition at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute. Photo by Justine Yeung.
“It’s maybe no surprise that AI is a trending topic, with documentaries in the U.S. and World competitions (Love Machina and Eternal You, respectively), NEXT (Seeking Mavis Beacon), and an interactive project in New Frontier [Being (the Digital Griot)],” explains Meijia. “Also I’m very interested in Love Me, the Alfred P. Sloane Feature Film Prize winner, a post-apocalyptic love story between two pieces of space detritus.”
Starting off, there was a lot of buzz about Love Me this year, as Sundance had already given the film an award before the Festival began. “Love Me stars Kristen Stewart and Stephen Yeun, who are both amazing actors. And I don’t think I could say better than the logline,” says Zwicker. The film is about “a buoy and a satellite” who meet online and fall in love long after humanity’s extinction.
“It’s really inventive, but it’s hard. It’s a love story that plays out in all these exciting ways, but it’s about human connection and so it’s beautiful and different. That’s something that we really like to see, too, is stuff we haven’t seen before,” says Zwicker
The 2024 Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize is an annual award given to an artist with “the most outstanding depiction of science and technology in a feature film.”
A still from Presence by Steven Soderbergh, an official selection of the Premieres Program at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute.
“I am also looking forward to checking out new projects by Sundance legends Steven Soderbergh (Presence, Premieres) and Richard Linklater (God Save Texas, Episodic; Hitman, Spotlight),” says Michael Mejia.
Zwicker is likewise excited that Sundance has artists like Steven Soderbergh bringing their work to the festival. “This is someone who has been so successful for so long, but he continues to take chances. He has a true spirit of innovation and independence in his work and in his new film, Presence…Throughout their careers, there’s always a home for them at Sundance. And I love that about our festival, too.”
Kieran Culkin and Jesse Eisenberg appear in A Real Pain by Jesse Eisenberg, an official selection of the U.S. Dramatic Competition at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute.
“We saw a lot of films about family this year, which I think can be such universal stories,” says Zwicker. “I, personally, am a sucker for a tear-jerker. We found some really lovely, resonant stories about family and growing coming of age—universal themes that filmmakers continually find new ways to express.”
“I’m thinking about films like A Real Pain, Jesse Eisenberg’s film, which is a film about two cousins whose grandmother has recently passed, and they travel to Poland to honor her legacy as a Holocaust survivor, but while also managing their own relationship,” says Zwicker. “It’s funny and it’s emotional, and that’s a film that I found extremely moving.”
Richard Roundtree and June Squibb appear in Thelma by Josh Margolin, an official selection of the Premieres program at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by David Bolen.
“We have a very different kind of film in our Premiere section,” says Zwicker. “I love to see films that are not like anything we’ve seen.” Thelma—a film about a woman who is “duped by a phone scammer pretending to be her grandson” and takes matters into her own hands to get retribution—stars an actress named June Squibb, a long-running character actress, but, says Zwicker, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen her highlighted in a lead role. She’s 93 years old. Thelma is a family film, too, but also a thriller and also funny. It’s kind of a film that I think that everybody can enjoy, but it’s definitely not a story I had seen before”
A still from In The Summers by Alessandra Lacorazza, an official selection of the U.S. Dramatic Competition at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute.
Family-oriented films are certainly having a moment at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. “I am excited to see In The Summers (U.S. Dramatic Competition), a coming-of-age film about two siblings and their annual visits with their loving, yet volatile, father,” says Winston. “It stars Lío Mehiel and Sasha Calle. I last saw Sasha as Supergirl in The Flash movie. While her Supergirl standalone film seems unlikely, I’m happy to see her career progressing. Last year at Sundance, I saw Lio in Mutt, and their performance completely blew me away.” You can see Jaime Winston’s review of Mutt here.
A still from Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story by Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui, an official selection of the Premieres program at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | Photo by Warner Bros / Alamy.
“Speaking of ‘super’ people, Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story, which features unseen footage and personal archives of the legendary actor, has captured my attention,” says Winston.
Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story is the Salt Lake Opening Night Film. The documentary premieres on January 19 at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center. The documentary shows never-before-seen home movies and personal archives, which reveal how Christopher Reeve went from an unknown actor to an iconic movie star as the ultimate screen superhero, and how he learned the true meaning of heroism as an activist after suffering a tragic accident that left him quadriplegic and dependent on a ventilator to breathe.
“I think biographical docs in the last few years have really been having a moment,” says Zwicker. “And this one is what I think is the best of what a biographical doc can be because it’s made with love and honesty. You really understand what made this man so special,” she says. “And you understand that through the people who loved him telling truthful stories about who he was and his impact on their lives. It is a movie that had me just crying buckets.”
A still from As We Speak by J.M. Harper, an official selection of the U.S. Documentary Competition at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute.
Music and musician-centered documentaries
Several other documentaries, falling into a few notable themes and trends, have caught our attention as well.
“I’m particularly excited by the array of music docs,” says Michael Mejia. “From an exploration of the use of rap lyrics as evidence in American courts (As We Speak, U.S. Documentary) to a NEXT doc on the Irish-language rap group Kneecap (Kneecap), looks at DEVO in Premieres (DEVO) and Brian Eno in New Frontiers (Eno), and Johan Grimonprez’s Soundtrack to a Coup d’État, picking through the CIA’s deployment of jazz artists to distract from its undermining of the independence movement in the Congo in 1960.”
“We also have a biographical doc about Luther Vandross, which is a really thoughtful study of him as an and through his art,” says Zwicker aboutLuther: Never Too Much (Premieres). “You kind of learn more about him as a person, which I think is a really smart and caring approach.”
Frida Kahlo appears in FRIDA by Carla Gutiérrez, an official selection of the U.S. Documentary Competition at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Archivo Manuel Álvarez Bravo, S.C.
LatinX-centered documentaries
“I’m eager to check out the entries from Latin America, including U.S. and World docs on Frida Kahlo (Frida), Argentinian gauchos (Gaucho Gaucho), and social justice in Colombia (Igualada), and features from Brazil (Malu), Peru (Reinas), and Mexico (Sujo),” says Meijia.
“The Japanese film Black Box Diaries (World Cinema Documentary Competition), about a journalist investigating a high-profile offender in her own sexual assault, sounds interesting as well,” says Jaime Winston.
Will Ferrell and Harper Steele appear in Will & Harper by Josh Greenbaum, an official selection of the Premieres Program at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute.
Continuing with the documentaries that have us excited, is a documentary about Will Ferrell and his longtime friendship with a writer who he’d collaborated with many times, who transitioned, called Will & Harper. “It’s about their friendship through Harper’s transition, and it’s funny, too, because it’s Will Ferrell, of course, but super emotional,” says Zwicker.
A still from Girls Will Be Girls by Shuchi Talati, an official selection of the World Dramatic Competition at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute.
“We have some terrific first features,” says Zwicker of this year’s lineup, which has a showing of films that broach the nuances and complexities of gender, identity and sexuality. “Girls Will Be Girls is an amazing Indian film in our World Competition that deals with coming-of-age female empowerment, female sexuality from a different cultural lens.
“It’s so lovely to see experiences that we know from our own lives told in a different cultural perspective,” says Zwicker. “it’s the kind of thing that makes you excited about world cinema. This sort of shared experience in storytelling. I see a lot of different voices around the world getting their first moment to get this spotlight. And that’s what I feel like our festival is for.”
This year’s Midnight selection, which features horror, thrillers and genre-defying works has a few standouts for us. “Last year, the horror film Talk to Me made me nervous driving home so late following the screening,” says Jaime Winston. “I can foresee a similar experience after watching The Moogai (Midnight), which is about a mother defending her baby from a sinister spirit.” Read the Talk to Me review here.
Zwicker admits she’s particularly adept and giving people Sundance film screening recommendations based on which Sundance films they’ve enjoyed in the past. We decided to put it to the test. One of our favorite Sundance films in recent years was Cha Cha Real Smooth, the 2022 Sundance Film Festival U.S. Dramatic Competition Audience Award winner. Cha Cha Real Smooth is a sharp, offbeat but heartfelt dramedy about relationships and growing up, centered around a floundering 20-something who works the bar mitzvah party circuit, that made Salt Lake magazine’s list of festival highlights that year as well. What 2024 film would Zwicker recommend based on that?
“Let’s see, something charming…I’m going to say there’s a film in our Premiere section called The American Society of Magical Negroes,” she says. “It is part fantasy. It is part rom.com. It is totally inventive. And it’s this conception of the magical Negro trope that appears in many sorts of old films…and this film totally flips that dated convention on its head. It’s really funny, but it’s also sweet. If you’re a fan of Real Smooth, that would be my recommendation.”
This year marksthe 40th festival for the Sundance Film Festival. In some ways, it’s hard to believe an event that has such an influence on film and art worldwide could possibly be that old. In other ways, it feels as if the festival has always been a permanent part of Park City and Utah. This 40th year marks Eugene Hernandez’s second as Festival Director, but, for people close to the event, it might feel as if Hernandez has always been a permanent fixture of the festival as well.
Eugene Hernandez
Sundance film festival director. Photo courtesy of Sundance
Hernandez started coming to Sundance 30 years ago, as a journalist in the mid-1990s, to build Indiewire. For Joana Vicente, Sundance Institute CEO, bringing in Hernandez is a “full circle” moment. Vicente was a film producer and met Hernandez during those early years. “Many times we would meet at Sundance,” she says, illustrating one of the festival’s primary functions. “Sundance is really a place about discovery. It’s this gathering place where you meet collaborators that you’re going to be working with.”
“The two of us are part of this broader independent film community because of the role that Sundance played in our own lives,” says Hernandez. Within that community he includes industry folks and audiences, particularly locals, who have shown “tremendous enthusiasm for coming back together,” he says. They saw this last year as well, when nearly 87,000 people physically attended the festival. Participants redeemed 138,000 tickets and contributed $118.3 million to Utah’s gross domestic product, according to an economic impact study on the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. “There’s something unique and special about every year coming back to that community,” says Hernandez. And the community is growing. With the accessibility of digital, festival films screenings received more than 285,000 views online.
The Sundance audience attends a festival event at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center. To Joana Vicente, Sundance Institute CEO, the Sundance audience makes it the best festival to make a first impression, as it is both an industry festival and a public-facing one. “There’s a chemistry that happens when you have people who are not in the industry watching films,” says Vicente, which sparks robust Q&A’s with filmmakers. Photo credit Henny Garfunkel
The Next Sundance
So what will Sundance look like with a longtime participant and professional, like Hernandez, as director? His focus is on connection, specifically connecting to art and to others through art. Forty years in, Hernandez attributes the festival’s longstanding cultural relevance to its support of independent artists. “Sundance plays such a vital part in starting the year with a new class of filmmakers, and that first impression is so essential,” says Hernandez. So the question becomes, “How do we assure that each film and filmmaker and the teams that come to Utah as part of that experience have the best shot at introducing themselves and their work to our various audiences?”
Joana Vicente
Sundance Institute CEO. Photo courtesy of Sundance Institute.
To that end, the 2024 Sundance Film Festival will carry forward some of the aspects of the 2023 festival—such as the hybrid model, with films available to screen in-person and online—while trying to infuse the event with more meaning and connection by emphasizing the in-person experience. To make those first impressions as special as possible, film premieres will only be screened in-person and competition films will be screened online only during the second half of the festival.
With this new model, the hope, in part, is to make the in-person portion of the festival—well—festive. Like with all anniversaries, expect celebration. Reflecting on 40 years, Sundance plans to honor the past by celebrating the future. “Celebrating the future is about continuing to be curious and to curate and bring the most exciting voices, stories and people who are the future of independent storytelling,” says Hernandez. The festival is also celebrating its legacy of discovering new talent. This year’s Opening Night Gala will celebrate a director who got his start at Sundance with the film Memento, Christopher Nolan.
“It really is unique among other festivals to have that focus on spotlighting and showcasing what’s new while also celebrating that alongside some of the familiar faces,” says Hernandez. “That’s really the work…to continue bringing people together.”
Sundance 2024 At A Glance
Festival dates: Jan. 18-28, 2024. Opening Night Gala is Jan. 18 at the DeJoria Center. In-person screenings begin around noon on Jan. 18. Online screenings begin Jan. 25.
The lineup: 90+ feature films, 60+ shorts.
Park City venues: Eccles Theater, Egyptian Theatre, Holiday Village Cinemas, Library Center Theatre, The Ray Theatre, Redstone Cinemas and Prospector Square Theatre.
SLC venues: Megaplex Theatres at The Gateway, the Salt Lake Film Society’s Broadway Centre Cinemas and the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center.
On a visit tothe Sugar House neighborhood in late Fall 2023, I barely recognize the place. Highland Drive is reduced to a tiny sliver of one-way traffic and 2100 South is a maze of narrow lanes to allow for road work. The whole neighborhood has broken out in a rash of orange barrels, and the road construction is choking off the arteries to some of my old haunts—Black Cat Comics, Bruges Waffles & Frites, Pib’s Exchange—even the Utah State Liquor Store on Ashton Avenue.
Months after the construction started in early 2023, the construction has claimed some notable casualties, according to the owners of local businesses who have made the decision to close their doors.
I spoke with one of Pizza Volta’s owners, Martin Brass, who closed the restaurant after just one year in business. “I had to let go of 26 people,” he says.
Brass started out feeling hopeful about their location in Sugar House when they opened in September 2022, having heard nothing but great things about the area. But by October, a nearby under-construction residential building, The Residences at Sugar Alley, caught fire and burned for days. The fire and ultimate demolition of the building closed surrounding roads for weeks. “The fire and demolition basically put a hole in the middle of the Sugar House,” says Brass.
It’s not the first hole to blight Sugar House. Back in the mid-oughts, the 2100 South and Highland Drive block was a row of funky galleries, a local coffee shop and an erotic bakery. A developer demolished the buildings in 2008, then the block lay bare for years when the construction money dried up in the recession. The eyesore came to be known as the “Sugar House hole.” Eventually, mixed-use developments filled the hole and life returned to that part of the neighborhood…until the fire.
The foot traffic Pizza Volta had been assured in Sugar House never materialized in the aftermath of the fire. Still, they kept at it. “We finally were almost breaking even in March 2023, recovering from just being a new business, from fire effects, from a number of different things…And then the city rips up Highland Drive.” The April after construction started on 1100 East and Highland Drive, Brass says sales at Pizza Volta dropped 30%, even while the number of delivery orders increased. “So that told me people wanted our pizza. They just didn’t want to go get it,“ says Brass.
Even longtime Sugar House businesses asked for the public’s help to offset some of the construction-induced losses. Kimi’s Chop & Oyster House advertised special deals on their website, saying “Sugar House construction is definitely a maze right now…Here at Kimi’s, we need your support more than ever because the construction is definitely letting us down!” The construction was so much of a letdown that Kimi’s could be looking for a new location, away from “the maze.”
With multiple construction projects going on at once, businesses near 2100 South and Highland Drive, like Pizza Volta, felt boxed in. “[The fire] didn’t help. And then that gets exacerbated by Highland Drive’s construction” Brass says. “Twenty-first South had, I think, two lanes closed. And then there was more construction around the corner from us. One of the side accesses was under construction at the same time. We were impacted on two sides. I don’t understand that. I just don’t understand how that’s the best they could do.”
The stated purpose of the construction projects is to support the Sugar House Business District by improving the roads and updating 100-year-old infrastructure. In the meantime, the Sugar House Chamber of Commerce and Salt Lake City leadership have encouraged residents to get out and support small, local businesses during the construction.
Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall even made an appearance at Pizza Volta back in July 2023. Salt Lake City also provides a Construction Mitigation Grant that gives up to $3,000 per business, for “small, independent businesses with less than 50 employees who have been adversely affected by construction,” according to the City. I’ve spoken with business owners in Sugar House who have received the grant but say $3,000 is just not enough to cover their losses from months of construction on all sides, impeding access to their locations. Is this the price for progress?
For Brass, the biggest regret in closing Pizza Volta is not so much monetary as the loss of connection to the community they were trying to foster. The restaurant hosted regular “Pizza With A Purpose” events, where a portion of the proceeds from every pizza sold went to a local non-profit. Pizza Volta also commissioned a local artist, Josh Scheuerman, to paint an indoor mural of iconic Utah historical symbols, easter eggs and artifacts for patrons to search through and explore while they dined. “Actually, that’s probably my biggest regret of all,” Brass says. “This is his work, and it’s in this space that’s just now closed and people can’t see it.”
Sugarhouse Transformation Timeline
January 2008
Developer Craig Mecham demolishes the eclectic row of shops at 2100 South and Highland Drive to make way for a new mixed-use development. Lack of funding, amidst the Great Recession, delays project construction.
May 2008
The city orders the developer to landscape the undeveloped 2100 South property. The bare crater earns the nickname “Sugar Hole.”
December 2011
The developer reports finally receiving funding for a pared-down version of the mixed-use plan.
April 2012
Construction begins on the Sugar House Streetcar Line (S-Line).
August 2012
More than four years after demolition, construction begins on the 2100 South and Highland Drive project, called Sugar House Crossing.
December 2013
S-Line opens to the public.
September 2014
With construction all but complete, Sugar House Crossing begins leasing residential and commercial units. This project, along with a handful of other planned projects, mark the beginning of a development boom in the Sugar House Business District.
Mid 2016
Neighborhood bar, Fat’s Grill, and Hyland Plaza, a small outdoor retail mall on 2100 South, are demolished to make way for future developments, including Sugar Alley. Two Granite Furniture warehouses are also demolished at McClelland Street and Sugarmont Drive to make way for the Sugarmont Apartments project.
November 2018
Voters approve an $87 million “Funding Our Future” bond to pay for improvements to major streets, including 2100 South and 1100 East/Highland Drive.
December 2020
Work is underway at the Sugar Alley construction site, a planned mixed-use building in between Sugarmont Apartments and Sugar House Crossing, on Highland Drive, as well as on a Park Avenue development on the old Shopko site.
March 2021
The former Snelgrove Ice Cream factory (2100 South and Commonwealth Avenue) is demolished to make way for the Sugar Town development.
November 2021
Alta Terra South, the first of two mixed-use developments near Fairmont Park, on the former site of a 24 Hour Fitness (1132 E. Ashton Ave.), receives approval from the city.
October 2022
The still-under-construction Sugar Alley is engulfed in flames and burns for days. Crews demolish the building and developers will spend the next few years reconstructing the building as originally planned.
March 2023
As part of the Funding Our Future bond, Salt Lake City begins work on Highland Drive/1100 East.
Coming in 2024
Construction of 1100 East from 2100 South to Ramona Street.
When Will the Construction Finally Come to an End?
In February 2023, the Highland Drive/1100 East Reconstruction Project began. According to the City, the project involves “Long overdue reconstruction of the roadway with added bike lane infrastructure and improved crosswalks and ADA access.” This project overlaps with multiple other ongoing projects in the area—including the 2100 South Sewer Expansion, 1100 East Improvement Project, 2100 South Reconstruction, which is scheduled through spring 2024, and a new apartment building project on Ashton Ave. At last check, a plan is also in the works to develop the old Wells Fargo site on 2100 South and Highland Drive. When will the construction end? At this point, there are construction projects slated for Sugar House through 2025.
Joining a multi-level marketing (MLM)company is not a requirement for living in Utah. It only feels that way. MLMs or “direct-sales” ventures are big business here and prominent features of the state’s cultural and physical landscape. Interstate 15 through Utah County is lined by grand, spacious buildings emblazoned with marquee signs celebrating the largest MLMs in the state—DoTerra, Young Living, Nu Skin, Younique, LifeVantage, and the hits keep on coming. We’ve all been hit up on social media with a “Hey Girl!” from a former high school classmate who is “reaching out with this AMAZING miracle product!” Unfriend. MLM girlies are always hustling and almost every Elder on your mission did a stint selling solar panels or pest control after he got home.
Why, pray tell, is Utah such fertile ground for MLMs? The culture within the ward houses likely plays a part. The LDS faith promotes industriousness and self-reliance. Young return missionaries easily morph into a fleet of pre-trained, often bi-lingual salespeople who are no strangers to knocking on doors. After marriage, LDS women are encouraged to build loving homes and, for many, hawking essential oils can earn pocket change (and break up the monotony). The Church also provides a built-in community (and weekly meetings) to recruit “downline” sellers. For one reason or another, some LDS folks are particularly susceptible to some of the sleazier schemes. In fact, Church leaders have admonished members to avoid being “too vulnerable to the lure of sudden wealth.”
Meanwhile, Utahns in high places have a history of looking out for these companies. Many MLMs peddle health and dietary supplements with unproven effects, unevaluated by the FDA. How is that legal? Thank the late Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, who championed the 1994 Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act which legitimized the sale of supplements and limited FDA oversight. Meaning, that if a company gets too bold with its claims, the FDA cracks down by sending them a strongly worded letter.
Despite the blessing of the U.S. Government, some MLMs have a nasty reputation for their business practices. For example, LuLaRoe was the subject of LuLaRich, an Amazon Prime documentary. The series shows how the LDS founders of MLM apparel company, LuLaRoe, used deceptive recruiting practices—preying largely on women who shared their religious beliefs—and saddled them with mountains of unsold, and often unwearable, inventory and massive debt. (Sales reps are not directly employed by the companies and often have to buy upfront the product to sell.) The model particulars might differ slightly from company to company, but it usually involves committing sales reps to market and sell products directly to consumers and to also recruit “downline” reps who pay a commission to their “upline” rep with every sale. Kind of like a pyramid.
Still, the direct-sales industry brings in a lot of money to the state, accounting for 2.2% of the annual earnings in Utah in 2020. Ten of the largest MLMs headquartered in Utah (surveyed in 2020) made $10.3 billion in sales, the majority of which (about $6 billion) was made overseas. Those profits do not trickle “downline,” however. Those 10 Utah companies had 21,500 independent sales reps in Utah whose median earnings (before expenses) ranged from only $70 to $3,000 per year.
That could explain why some MLM reps come across as aggressive and pretty desperate when they DM you on social media.
So, maybe, the next time an MLM girlie or solar sales bro emerges from the past with a sales pitch, why don’t we let them down easy?
During the holidays as a kid, I was dragged to theatrical productions of The Nutcracker, It’s a Wonderful Life and A Christmas Carol, but never once did I get to pelt Ebenezer Scrooge with garbage while the character was on stage. But, during a performance of The Lord of Misrule, audience members’ throwing garbage on stage is actively encouraged.
Audience disruption is among the key features of this Christmas play, and for the chance to disrupt the action on stage, audience members make charitable donations during the performance. It’s sowing Christmas chaos for a good cause. Oh, and the tickets are free.
“The Lord of Misrule: An Interactive Play” (courtesy The Lords of Misrule Theatre Co.)
The Lord of Misrule is coming to Salt Lake City’s The Beehive, a venue in the vegan diner Mark of the Beastro, (666 S. State St., Salt Lake City) for five nights only, starting this weekend:
December 22, 2023 at 8 p.m.
December 23, 2023 at 8 p.m.
December 24, 2023 matinee at 2 p.m.
December 26, 2023 at 8 p.m.
December 27, 2023 at 8 p.m.
The origins of The Lord of Misrule
According to the theatrical company, “The Lord of Misrule” dates back to an ancient Christmas tradition called Saturnalia, during which “A beggar is crowned the Lord of Misrule to preside over drunken mobs and Christmas parties. The Lord of Misrule would often make demands of local gentry.” Typically, they would demand more alcohol to keep the party going, and “If the gentry failed to meet the demands, the Lord of Misrule would incite a riot…Basically, forced Christmas Charity.”
The modern version of The Lord of Misrule keeps the absurdity to the stage and audiences willingly donate money to charity to influence how actors perform their scenes.
The first Lord of Misrule production was in winter of 2019, as a reaction to the closing of the Road Home in downtown Salt Lake City. The show raised money to help transport people from downtown to the new Road Home location in South Salt Lake, so they wouldn’t have to make the journey on foot in the middle of winter.
Even though the modern tradition began in 2019, audiences will never see the same performance twice, thanks to the clever and chaotic mechanic of audience disruption and challenges for the actors.
How does audience donation/disruption work?
The show’s program contains a list of 69 (of course there are 69) challenges for the actors. Any member of the audience can “order” one of these disruptive challenges by making a charitable donation during the show either with cash or Venmo.
For example, an actor could be forced to perform their scenes while doing physical challenges like squats or planking, or they may have to affect an accent, chug water or end every sentence with “Daddy.” As more and more of these challenges are piled onto the characters throughout the show, the more their “real personalities” bubble to the surface for the audience to see. By the third act, the show has likely and delightfully gone completely off the rails.
This year, the charitable donations given during productions of The Lord of Misrule will benefit Our Unsheltered Relatives, an organization that prepares fresh, hot meals for the homeless population on Rio Grande every weekend. The funds will help purchase healthy ingredients, kitchen equipment, and other operational costs.
On certain nights of the show, donations will also help fund Alternative Arts and Music Program (AAMP), which works to improve arts access by providing free or no-cost resources and classes to Utah’s independent performance artists, with a focus on alternative art and communities who are underrepresented; as well as help cover the costs of friend of the show Pidgin Green’s gender-affirming surgery.
R.J. Walker, Creative Director, The Lords of Misrule Theatre Co. for “The Lord of Misrule: An Interactive Play”
What is the show about?
As Creative Director, R.J. Walker puts it, The Lord of Misrule is a crass interpolation of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, but it is also so much more than that.
The main action of The Lord of Misrule concerns televangelist character Lucas Karol. Karol purports to heal the “sick,” perform “exorcisms,” and, while doing this, collects donations from his faithful followers in exchange for performing these miracles. It all happens on his daytime TV show, Scriptures Unscripted. Then, as the play’s summary puts it, “during Pastor Karol Presents: A Christmas Carol, a rowdy mob hijacks the show and the Pastor, his wife, and his special guests are forced to obey the orders of the Lord of Misrule who is leading the mob while performing their Christmas pageant…Will Pastor Karol’s church survive this hostile yuletide takeover?” This year, The Lord of Misrule has an all trans/non-binary cast.
Oh right, I almost forgot about the garbage throwing! During the show, there’s a trash can in the middle of the stage, and there’s a big surprise that happens if a member of the audience manages to sink a basket in the garbage can by throwing their trash on stage.
On Wednesday, the Sundance Film Festival revealed its lineup for the 2024 Festival year—including 82 films, eight episodic titles and a New Frontier interactive experience.
This year marks the 40th edition of the Festival.
Festival organizers and programmers say this year’s programming, the 40th edition of the festival, is special. “Sundance’s passion and power shine through its programming. Curation is Sundance’s secret sauce and we’re energized by the range of films, stories, and artists we’ve watched and selected from around the world,” said the Director of Sundance Film Festival, Eugene Hernandez. “Our programming team, led by Kim Yutani, has curated 11 days of exciting new voices and stories for the many audiences we serve whether they’re joining us in Utah or experiencing the Festival offerings from afar. Sundance 2024 will be a special year for discovery and community.”
“While we don’t set out to program the Festival with a defined theme in mind, it became apparent this year that our slate’s biggest strength is how it showcases the vitality of independent storytelling,” said Kim Yutani, Sundance Film Festival Director of Programming. “These titles are inventive and they beautifully represent the kind of groundbreaking work we’ve sought to amplify at Sundance throughout our history.”
The Festival kicks off at noon on January 18 with premieres in Park City. Adding to the festivities that evening, Sundance Institute will host the Opening Night Gala: Celebrating 40 Years. The fundraiser will benefit artists and support the Sundance Institute. At the Opening Night Gala, the proceedings will recognize Sundance alum filmmaker Christopher Nolan with the Sundance Institute Trailblazer Award, as well as Celine Song and Maite Alberdi with the Vanguard Award for Fiction and Vanguard Award for Nonfiction, respectively.
The 2024 Sundance Film Festival happens January 18–28, 2024, with in-person film screenings and events in Park City and Salt Lake City. Some films will be available to screen online nationwide from January 25–28, 2024.
What to watch for at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival
The Salt Lake Opening Night Filmis Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story, a documentary premiering on January 19 at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center. The documentary shows never-before-seen home movies and personal archives, which reveal how Christopher Reeve went from an unknown actor to an iconic movie star as the ultimate screen superhero, and how he learned the true meaning of heroism as an activist after suffering a tragic accident that left him quadriplegic and dependent on a ventilator to breathe. (Director and Producer: Ian Bonhôte; Director and Screenwriter: Peter Ettedgui; Producers: Lizzie Gillett, Robert Ford)
A film screening in the U.S. Dramatic Competition category, Love Me,is the winner of the 2024 Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize, an annual award given to an artist with “the most outstanding depiction of science and technology in a feature film.” The film, starring Kristen Stewart and Steven Yeun (who starred in the 2020 Sundance film Minari), is about “a buoy and a satellite” who meet online and fall in love long after humanity’s extinction. The award recognized the film’s directors and screenwriters, Sam Zuchero and Andy Zuchero.
The Zucheros are first-time feature film directors at the Sundance Film Festival, which make up 40% of the feature film directors accepted into this year’s festival.
Stewart, meanwhile, has starred in several Sundance films over the years, including another film at this year’s festival: Love Lies Bleeding, an entry in this year’s MIDNIGHT lineup, which features horror, thrillers, and genre-defying works. The film follows “reclusive gym manager Lou, who falls hard for Jackie, an ambitious bodybuilder headed through town to Las Vegas in pursuit of her dream. But their love ignites violence, pulling them deep into the web of Lou’s criminal family.” Actor Jena Malone (The Hunger Games: Catching Fire) appears in Love Lies Bleeding as well, along with Katy O’Brian (Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania), Ed Harris, Dave Franco and Anna Baryshnikov (Manchester by the Sea).
Like Stewart, Malone has multiple projects at Sundance this year. Little Death (a world premiere in the Festival’s innovation-focused NEXT category) is the work of another first-time Sundance feature film director, Jack Begert. Dani Goffstein is the screenwriter and the film is produced by Darren Aronofsky (whose directorial debut, Pi, premiered at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival). Little Death is about “A middle-aged filmmaker on the verge of a breakthrough. Two kids in search of a lost backpack. A small dog a long way from home.” David Schwimmer, Gaby Hoffmann, Dominic Fike, Talia Ryder (who made her feature film debut in the 2020 Sundance film, Never Rarely Sometimes Always) and Sante Bentivoglio round out the cast.
Those with multiple projects at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival also include Jesse Eisenberg with A Real Pain (director/actor) and Sasquatch Sunset (producer/actor); Filipina actor Dolly De Leon with Ghostlight and Between the Temples; Dungeons & Dragons actor Justice Smith with The American Society of Magical Negroes and I Saw the TV Glow; The Worst Person in the World actor Renate Reinsve with Handling the Undead and A Different Man; Emma Stone and Dave McCary produced A Real Pain and I Saw the TV Glow; and director Richard Linklater with God Save Texas and Hit Man.
Festival darling Aubrey Plaza returns to Sundance with the premiere of My Old Ass, written and directed by Megan Park and produced by Margot Robbie and Tom Ackerley. The description of the film reads, “The summer before college, bright-yet-irreverent Elliott comes face-to-face with her older self during a mushroom trip. The encounter spurs a funny and heartfelt journey of self-discovery and first love as Elliott prepares to leave her childhood home.” A number of Plaza’s castmates from Mike White’s The White Lotus also have projects at the Festival this year: Murray Bartlett (Ponyboi), Will Sharpe (A Real Pain), Meghann Fahy (Your Monster), Fred Hechinger (Thelma) and Brittany O’Grady (It’s What’s Inside).
The full slate of 2024 Sundance films includes 82 feature-length films, representing 24 countries. Eleven of the feature films and projects announced today were supported by Sundance Institute in development through direct granting or residency labs. World premieres make up 85 (94%) of the Festival’s 90 feature films and episodic programs.
Tickets and film screenings
Films will be screened in SLC at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center, Megaplex Theatres at The Gateway and Salt Lake Film Society’s Broadway Centre Cinemas.
In-person ticket packages and passes and online ticket packages and passes are currently on sale, and single film tickets go on sale January 11 at 10 a.m. Visit sundance.org for tickets and more information about how to participate in the 2024 Sundance Film Festival.
