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What a Park-ing Garage!

by andrew haley

Of all the groups of people in the world, and I mean every single one, no one, anywhere, has worse architectural taste than the Bovus Magnus Desereti, or common Mormon. The local legends are full of examples. Look at the Temple. Who are we kidding? The BBC made fun of it last month on international radio. They called it an eyesore. They don't have anything to lose. They don't have to live here.

Here's a Temple fact for you. Did you know they used it as a prop in the He-Man sequel: The Siege of Greyskull? And those blue-colored jackets that Temple security wears-my God! It's the same color as my friend's '84 Dodge Aries - after he drove it off the highway.

And then there's the new assembly hall. Whoever thought that you could ruin Fascist architecture? I wanna know when the Jazz are going to start playing there instead of the Delta Center. Changes the meaning of Conference Champions, doesn't it?

But this new park they built on PUBLIC PROPERTY is an all-time low. Who in the name of God thought a dozen potted scrub oak would make that concrete soccer field look attractive? It was more inviting when a street ran through it. Those giant, stupid looking bird feeders look like diving pools for Moroni! The irony behind that, is that those big, stupid dishes were designed for the 2nd Fighter Wing of the Mormon Seagulls, but Rocky thwarted everything by declaring that since fuel prices were so high, the IOC would cut down on costs by using those stupid bowls and a few tons of pig shit for the Olympic torch.

The real jewel in the design is the giant hole in the parking entrance at the bottom of State Street. What a magnificent idea! Imagine the pastoral effect on visitors when they drive down from Idaho or Ogden for the ballet, or to catch the Jazz at the LDS Conference Finals. After hours on the road, imagine coming over Capitol Hill and heading straight down into that gaping keister snuggled between Castle Greyskull and the Amazing Office Building. What a helluva treat!

The fact is, Mormons should not be allowed to touch a drafting pencil. Mormons should never, under any circumstance, be given access to cranes, dump trucks, or bulldozers (unless a dam breaks). Mormons should, above all, never be given the power to purchase pieces of our city.

You may think the old guys in the locker room at the Deseret gym were creepy. You may think that Main Street sucks from Lambs up anyway. You may think it's a bargain to sell off some rotten piece of town, but Jesus! look what they'll put up in its place! I thought we had Masons in town for a reason. This isn't just joking around. I'm very serious. One of these days the Church is going to bid on North Temple between the Hinckley-Malone-Stockton Assembly Hall and Temple Square. They'll be very quiet and very persuasive. Who knows what kind of slick arrangements will be made on high to get those public thoroughfares? But no matter the compromise, and believe me, we have a Legacy of compromise in this town, they'll try for it.

You see, when they bought Main Street and built that park-ing garage, it threw everything off by turning Mormecca into a rectangle. The only way they can turn Temple Rectangle back into a square is by buying all the streets surrounding Castle Greyskull. Imagine a concrete beltway linking all of those architectural felonies together.

But hey, Roman Catholics have their own country, so the least Mormons deserve is their own mall.