The 9th and 9th Where Salt Lake Gets Interesting

The 9th and 9th Where Salt Lake Gets Interesting

Salt Lake City's grid is relentlessly logical — numbered streets crossing numbered streets with the Cartesian determination of a city planned by people who valued order above whimsy. The 9th and 9th neighborhood, where 900 East meets 900 South, is where the grid finally relaxes, and the result is the most walkable, human-scaled district in a city that was designed for wagons.

The Coffee Garden on 900 East has been the neighborhood's gathering place since before Salt Lake had a coffee culture, and its survival is a testament to the power of caffeine and stubbornness. The pour-over is good, the patio is shaded by a massive tree, and the crowd is a cross-section of the neighborhood: university students, young parents, retirees who remember when this block was quiet, and cyclists who've parked their bikes with the casual confidence of people who own the road.

Tower Theatre on 900 East is an Art Deco cinema that screens independent and foreign films with the curatorial care of a festival and the popcorn of a neighborhood theater. The neon marquee is the block's heartbeat — visible from three intersections and glowing with the particular warmth of a sign that has been lit every evening for eighty years.

The surrounding blocks are residential and beautiful — bungalows and Tudor-revival cottages with gardens that take advantage of the irrigation the city provides, producing roses and peonies and lilacs that seem slightly miraculous in a desert climate. The Wasatch Mountains rise at the east end of every cross street like a wall of stone that the city has decided to treat as a backdrop rather than an obstacle.

Insider tip: Walk two blocks east to Liberty Park — 80 acres of old trees, a lake, and a Sunday farmers market that sells the best stone fruit in the Intermountain West because the Utah climate, it turns out, is perfect for peaches.