You don't need a geometry textbook to appreciate the shapes of Salt Lake City
On the Street
By Bryant Heath
Ask for directions to somewhere and you're likely to get two types of responses. One is a strict, quantifiable catalog of distances, directions and streets ("head south on McClelland Street for a quarter-mile ..."). The other is a mishmash listing of points of interest, unique sights and travel times ("go about 5 minutes until you hit the red building, then turn left").
Due to Salt Lake's street grid, both methods have a commonality: shapes. For the analytical minded, the grid is a Cartesian coordinate system, making distinct connecting paths as you travel from points A to B to C and back to A.
And since the grid network correlates with more frequent intersections, qualitative explainers have an abundance of landmarks—typically indicated by color, size and yes, shape—to choose from. I mean, it is called Temple "Square" for a reason, after all.
However, this is not the only way geometry pops up while cruising around Salt Lake. Whether it's the hyperbolic triangles of a sun shade on a patio or the trapezoidal barriers forming the new chicanes on McClelland Street near Elm Avenue, shapes of all makes and sizes abound.
Unsurprisingly, schools—where the subject of math is unavoidable—are bursting with them. Even kids in recess at Highland Park Elementary School on 2700 South near Melbourne Street can't escape basic shapes, as they are imprinted on retaining walls (below, left).
As for uninquisitive adults, driving on roundabouts like the one on Wasatch Drive near the University of Utah Dumke Family Softball Stadium (below, right), may be one of the few times they contemplate geometry nowadays.
But for me, square pyramids—like the ones above the entrance to the Granite Technical Institute on Oak Avenue and Main Street (above photo)—are my favorite. Depending on the angle and time of day, they appear so differently. At street level, it's just an assortment of shadowed triangles but from above, it looks like you're in the middle of an oversize game of Tetris.
I could go on (much to the dismay of the math-phobic, I'm sure), but it looks like the bell rang. Class dismissed!
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