During grand opening ceremonies Saturday, Salt Lake City's $6.5 million John W. Gallivan Plaza was officially unveiled as an example of transformation - from a run-down urban area into a versatile park.
A few years ago, the city block located between State and Main streets and 200 and 300 South was a jumble of nondescript shops and urban grime known simply as Block 57. Now, after years of planning, development and no small amount of controversy, it is the Utah Center, with a gleaming 24-story office tower and the newly completed plaza.Grand opening activities for the plaza included a five-kilometer race, food booths, mimes, magicians, singers, puppeteers, cowboy poets, clowns, sidewalk painting and speeches from Salt Lake Mayor Deedee Corradini and other dignitaries.
Notwithstanding the whirl of activities, the 5.5-acre plaza itself, with its lawns, pond, amphitheater and even life-size chess board, was the central attraction.
Small knots of people gathered around the permanent artworks scattered throughout the plaza, each reflecting its creator's interpretation of the theme "Natural Utah." Stone, water, bronze and steel prominently figure in the pieces.
The plaza's central sculpture, "Asteroid Landed Softly," is no exception. Its principal feature is, simply, a great big rock.
Utah artist Kazuo Matsubayashi designed a pair of sleek glass- and copper-covered 30-foot concrete columns and put a 6-ton sandstone boulder on top. The sculpture directs sunlight at a sundial on the plaza beneath. Various symbols, including zodiac and Indian signs and the Chinese yin-yang, are imbedded around the sculpture.
Reactions to the work varied.
"It's cool," said one boy climbing around the sundial components.
"It's . . . well, a rock on a stick," a woman said.
"It looks unbalanced," said another as she gazed up at the rock. "It looks like he just stuck it on there."
"I don't get it," a girl said as she and her companion lost interest and wandered off.
Other artworks in the plaza include bronze panels with stories etched in them along a sunken lawn area, 5-foot bronze grates surrounding trees in various locations, a bronze statue of two young children and a fountain that shoots water from more than 100 nozzles overhead onto the plaza floor.
With the sun beating down, the fountain, predictably, was the most popular sculpture with children.
The northwest corner of the plaza is paved with granite stones carrying a variety of names, messages, advertisements, whatever people wanted to leave for posterity when they were invited to place a message on a tile for $57 this past December.
"Jim Nelson was here," announces one tile.
"Ben & Barb Forever," proclaims another.
The plaza's emphasis on art, beauty and impractical aesthetics is aptly captured by a poem engraved on stones beside a stairway.
"We mark our progress," it says, "by how much we leave behind."
Plaza hours are 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. year-round.