Spencer Windes comes from Santa Fe Magazine after a long career in communications and nonprofit management around the US and overseas. A descendant of Utah pioneers, Spencer is excited to be back in Utah experiencing a 21st-century version of Zion.
The annual People for Bikes rating of bike-friendly cities is out for 2025. Cities are scored on a 1-100 scale, with Mackinac Island, which bans cars and moves everyone and everything around by bike, scoring a perfect 100. Where’s SLC? At a very respectable 62, up a massive ten points from last year. But more importantly, we now beat New York City!
Other cities we trounced included Philly, DC, Tucson and Austin. We owned Boise and San Diego, and left LA long in the rearview mirror. Even better, we beat such acclaimed bike meccas as Portland, Madison, Chico and Burlington.
San Francisco did edge us out by a point. Something to aim for next year!
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This June, the reign of the automobile has come to a screeching halt on Main Street downtown, at least on Friday and Saturday nights. Open Streets, Salt Lake’s summer season street party, has been running with a whole new concept to welcome folks downtown.
Started during COVID as a way to preserve restaurants and businesses along Main by letting them spill out into the roadway, this public party has become a recurring feature of the summer months. This year, it’s been divided into four zones to offer you four distinct experiences.
A boy watches a street performer at the Open Streets festival in downtown Salt Lake City, June 2025. Photo courtesy the SLC Dept. of Economic Development
The first block south of South Temple has been dubbed the Family Commons, featuring games, jugglers, and other activities designed to engage the young ones. One block south, the Arts Avenue surrounds the Eccles Theater with live music, street performers and an evolving mural project.
Children play soccer at the Open Streets festival in downtown Salt Lake City, June 2025. Photo courtesy the SLC Dept. of Economic Development.
Further south in the Village Market, vendors will be hawking their wares and a community stage will provide a venue for local musicians to get their noise on. The final block is Restaurant Row, with the eating houses extending shady patios out into the street. The bottom of the block features a beer garden at Exchange Place, complete with mini-golf and DJs.
Open streets will wrap up this weekend on Friday and Saturday from 2 p.m. to 2 a.m.
A Bagpiper performs at the Open Streets festival in downtown Salt Lake City, June 2025. Photo courtesy of the SLC Dept. of Economic Development
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One of the reasons I left Salt Lake as a young man in the ’90s was because I couldn’t imagine a full queer life here. Granted, I never really gave the city a chance and rushed off to gayer pastures—LA, NY, DC, Amsterdam, Santa Fe. It was a coincidence then that, after taking a new job as the Managing Editor for Salt Lake magazine, I ended up back in town on June the First, the beginning of Pride month.
That first afternoon, as I headed up to the City Cemetery for a welcome home visit to my mom’s gravesite, traversing through Liberty Wells and 9th and 9th and the Avenues, a rainbow wave washed over me. SLC was decked in celebration for Pride.
I know you didn’t all do this to welcome me but thank you for the warm greetings just the same. I didn’t expect a parade! For me? You shouldn’t have. In all seriousness, I had my concerns coming back to Utah at a moment when waves of hate seems to be rising and even cresting in a loud crashing roar, with more on the horizon out past the break. But then I heard what the city did by declaring its new official flags, and as I roamed the lovely, graceful neighborhoods where my roots developed, I saw my new neighbors putting out their multihued welcome mats and knew that this was, for me, the place, again. I marveled at, well, the amount of Pride on display. So today, I ducked out of the office and sought out to capture in a few photos what feels like a personal welcome home mat for me.
Here are a few of my favorite proud houses of Salt Lake.
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And June isn’t over yet, so order a new Sego Lily Salt Lake Pride flag from Project Rainbow, or pick them up at Cahoots at 9th and 9th.
Read more stories like this and all of our Community coverage. And while you’re here, subscribe and get six issues of Salt Lake magazine, your curated guide to the best of life in Utah.
