Sugarhouse--what happened!?

I grew up in Sugarhouse, and now that I’m back in Salt Lake most of the time i’m amazed at what I’m seeing there. I’ve been over there a couple of times. The business area seems overbuilt. I’m amazed at the traffic congestion, unavailability of parking, and the sheer press of people. Is this something that Salt Lake City expected or wanted?

They moved the prison. Was all downhill from there. :laughing: My grandmother lived a few streets directly north of the place. Remember it well.

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Yes, it’s been in the plans since the early 90s. Building nodes of density, connected by mass transit, is sound planning practice. Something that’s significantly lacking in 99.9% of Utah. Get out of your car and walk around, it’s pretty nice!

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I need to find someplace to park my car first. It really does look far too crowded. But I can see lots of nice things there.

Ride the streetcar :wink:

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Bro, you sound like my neighbors on Nextdoor App that complain about and want to micromanage EVERYTHING. Just kidding, but that’s what growth looks like. Can’t go horizontal in SH so gotta go vertical and that means traffic.

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Sugarhouse was such a great eclectic place in it’s glory days.

My great grandparents owned Hygeia Ice on 2100 South so I understand that things have changed. BTW parking isn’t as bad as it appears. Most commercial locations have street front parking and there are thousands of parking stalls underground.

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Always seems to be parking by Whole Foods, or over by Old Navy, also the Sugar House shopping center by Nordstrom Rack and the new Target. Plus there is public parking underground just off Highland Dr south of 2100S.

I’ve lived in Sugar House just south of I-80 for the past 11 years and while it’s gotten a bit busier it’s not that bad. I can always get where I need to go and I can always find a parking space for any store I need to get to.

Yeah, I go to Petco there often, and now and then we go to the Whole Foods there as well. I didn’t mean to be overly critical, I just found it nuts today at around 1 PM when I was trying to get to a car wash. I was just amazed how many people were milling around. Maybe that was just because it was Friday and a summer afternoon. I still enjoy my memories when I go back there, I just wonder about the high-rise buildings and high-density plan that’s obviously unfolding. I hope they have planned for traffic and other issues arising from that plan. Sorry, @UteKing, I don’t see mass transit being a very practical solution to that challenge, at least not in the near term.

It’s just the business center that gives me a little pause. I’m getting away from LA I was also trying to get away from that kind of jostling humanity. Aside from that the Sugarhouse residential neighborhoods outside the business center are still quite charming and lovely. It was a great place to grow up, and yes, I sure do remember Hygieia Ice.

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I spent many a summer day walking from our home on Wilson Ave. to swim at Hygeia. Great memories. Also took more than a few laps around the skating rink in the winter. Tubing at Sugarhouse Park after school was a blast. Loved biking around Allen Park and watching the homecoming parade and football games at Westminster. My first job was at Keith O’Briens. Sugarhouse was a great place to grow up in the 60’s.

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I’m a child of the early ‘80s, so I spent my summers at HydroTube and a new hamburger place that just entered the market called “Wendy’s”.

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For those that don’t remember, here’s an aerial photograph of a portion of Sugarhouse with the prison in the background, from 1955. Sugarhouse was not much different when I recall it first in the mid 60’s, but the prison had been replaced by Sugarhouse Park, and Highland High school.

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Used to skate at Hygeia Ice when I was in Junior High at Bryant, in the late1960’s.

Good times… :slight_smile:

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My great great grandfather was in jail at the prison in the 1800s for polygamy. He was released when his elderly 2nd wife passed away.

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The old prison was built of large sandstone bricks. When the prison was closed and demolished, those bricks were made available to anyone who wanted them. I dimly remember as a very small child being with my parents as they loaded the trunk of our car with those bricks. The bricks later became a retaining wall in our backyard. Later owners demolished the wall and disposed of the bricks. I wish I had one.

I never thought of it at the time, but all my siblings and I, who grew up in that house, attended and graduated from Highland High, built on the prison site.

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I hated Keith O’Briens, because that meant I was getting some uncomfortable shoes. My mom would drive us there all the way from Bountiful.

Converse All-Stars, all the way, baybee!!!

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I worked at the Skaggs in Sugarhouse in the early 80s. Working retail should get you credit in Sociology classes. It sure helped me with mine.

Spence Clark - father of Ute great Steve Clark - owned a lot of that land, some old run down houses where the U Healthcare Sugarhouse clinic is now, which he would rent to Ute FB players and other folks who needed cheap housing.

We had some “interesting” neighbors who would come into the store pretty much every day, and the interaction between them and the FB players was always good entertainment.

This 60-something Italian lady came in one day, ranting big time, really angry. Four packs a day will add some timber to your voice, even a little old lady.

“They finally did it, those bastards, I dared them, they’d get what they had coming, but they didn’t care. I can’t believe they actually did it. I hate them!”

Me: “What did they do?”

Lady: “They pee’d on my little dog! I should never have started that fight with them, I just can’t believe they did it!”

I think it was during the Stobart years, before the Poly pipeline, just some tough guys who really weren’t too into school.

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I remember back in the day someone saying that Wayne Howard emptied the southern California jails to fill out the football roster.

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I really came of age as a Ute FB fan during Howard’s era, he brought excitement to the program.

One of the DL Howard brought was a 21-year old FR from Saskatchewan name Eugene LaRoque, aka “Geno”. Along with Pancho Negrete and Mike “the Snake” Kinsella, our DL had character. (Kinsella was 6-4 and about 200 lbs, hence the nickname.)’’

Anyway, Geno LaRoque did maintenance work for Mr. Clark on his property in Sugarhouse, I used to talk with him whenever I could. Good dude, tough Canuck.

One day Geno said he had to go back to Canada, would be back. He drove a magnificent land yacht, a big Buick LeSabre or something. About a month later Geno came into the store, but the land yacht wasn’t out front.

“Hey, where’s the big Buick, Geno?”

LaRocque: “It broke down north of the border, so I pushed it into a ditch, got a ride into town and got another car”.

Years later after we opened the indoor practice facility, I was watching practice and saw this big old bear come in and start watching. I recognized it was Geno, so I went over to catch up with him.

He was in awe… not of the facility, but of the talent we had, about 2005.

“There’s no way I would see the field with this kind of talent. These guys are BIG, strong and scary quick. This looks dangerous! Like being a clown at the rodeo!, eh?”

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