Japantown thrived with restaurant, markets,retail, multi-ethnic housing, community centers, schools, and streets with festivals.

Salt Lake City was once a visually diverse city that was visible through the community in these neighborhoods and included

Hispanic-Chicano, Chinese, Greek, Syrian-Lebanese and Italian communities. In 1967, Japantown was demolished and was replaced with the convention center known as Salt Palace convention center. Businesses shutdown, and the Japanese community was displaced. Members of the community moved through out Salt Lake Valley or out of state. Most businesses did not continue after Japantown was demolished. A few businesses still remain today, one of them is known as Sage Market (1515 Main St). 

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Japantown is now a small street known as Japantown street (established in 2007 as requested by the community). The only two buildings that remain are the Salt Lake Buddhist Temple and the Japanese Church of Christ. 

The street is located behind Salt Palace Convention center and includes a small Japanese Garden (in between the church and the loading deck of the convention center). A developer known as The Ritchie Group has bought a piece of land adjacent to Japantown and the Japanese community is concerned with the potential impacts of this development. Salt Lake City Corporation's Redevelopment Agency is serving as a facilitator between the two parties, The Japanese Preservation Committee and the Ritchie Group to come to a mutual consensus on how to best move forward. The Japanese community has been given $100,000 from the city to incorporate a traditional Japanese inspired gateway as a way to identify Japantown Street and include other Japanese inspired elements to create more visibility on the street. 

 

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Japantown has shaped the narrative of

Salt Lake City and it’s community,in conjunction to the other communities mentioned who share similar stories of displacement and injustice.

Their story is not just their story. It is all of ours, we each build, give, learn, and take from one another, and we are a result of the contribution of each other. A city, a community is built upon our stories, and when these stories are erased, what is left of our community? Japantown is an example and representation of many communities that have been destroyed, displaced, colonized, wiped out, homogenized all around the world. This issue has recurred throughout history specifically in the United States during the uprise in Urban Renewal (catering towards the automobile being one of the elements), and it is crucial to tell the story of these communities before they are completely gone from our memory. Especially in a political climate that believes in a certain reality of what America is and should and look like. The concept of “out of sight, out mind,” is a very real reality in our connection to one another as human beings. 

 

Since the beginning,human beings have associated a recognition and connection of ourselves, values, traditions, and identity through some visible element. This is seen through architecture, calligraphy, ceremony's, clothing, gestures, language, monuments etc. This visibility is part of being human and expressing our identity. When these elements are eliminated, a society is altered to live, think, and feel threatened by these elements of visibility.