The church office building is ENORMOUS!

[_zeezrom]

Ceeboo,

Yeah lets see if we can get Runtu to reply to your OP. I have a family member who works as an accountant in that building. He works on the 20-something floor, as I recall. His department has a morning devotional every Monday morning at 8am. Instead of a Christmas bonus he got a top of the line, leather quad (Book of Mormon, D&C, New Testament, Old Testament). He told me it was a limited edition printing and seemed quite happy with it. They have a big cafeteria on the main floor. I was invited to go eat lunch with before mentioned family member but never made it over.

Relief Society is right about the FP and Q12 spending their time in the monolithic building just south of COB but I still consider the COB the brain or nerve center of LDS. for what it's worth, I used to make little trips to temple square and the grounds around the COB when I was a freshman at UofU (pre mission, pre BYU). I was not accepted into BYU yet because I didn't have an endorsement from my mission Pres and another guy with connections-that is a story for another time. Anyway, I used to visit this place and marvel at the enormous size of the structures, which sort of helped validate my belief that this really could be the only true church on the face of the earth.

Quas, the name of the Hotel Utah was changed in the 1990's when it was refurbished to The Joseph Smith Memorial Building. It has a giant statue of Joseph Smith in the lobby. There is a beautiful restaurant on the top floor (2, actually). The nicer of the two is where I took a girl right after my mission. It was the night of my first kiss. The first time I kissed a girl but it wasn't that great because we sort of missed. The next kiss was my now wife. That kiss was better as we were more focused. The last time I ate in the restaurant at the top of the JSM building was lunch with my dad after he found out I was questioning the church. I think the idea was that a person is more likely to feel the Spirit if they eat good food while overlooking temple square.

More than you asked for, Ceeboo. Temple square holds many memories for me. I could go all day. If you come out to SLC, consider coming I Dec then you can see the lights and Christmas displays at temple square and go skiing at Alta or Snowbird. The sister missionaries would love to take you on a tour of the place. You will like the sister missionaries of temple square. These girls are hand picked out of the lot for their beauty and charm.

[_RockSlider]

The church archieves used to be on the first floor of the tower. It was open access for years. I wonder if it is still located there?

Anyway, a little story about the day I visited the COB'ings:

I've been in the fp/q12 building before, meet very briefly with a very unhappy BKP who handed me off to a couple Seventies. I went there expecting that it would be the beginning of my excommunication (fully active TBM working at the temple at the time).

In the old COB there's a long narrow hallway from the front door to the back of the building where there is a set of stairs and the elevator. There is an armed guard sitting at a desk by the stairs. One bright and sunny Monday, I walked up to that guard and handed him a full paper lunch bag full of 3.5" floppies, a letter and several printed lists. I told that guard that BKP would want to read the letter and that someone was going to want to speak with me.

He assured me that no one would contact me and that I should go home. I assured him that indeed someone would want to talk to me and that I would be waiting over in the first floor of the tower.

I paced the floors over there for about 45 minutes when this very nice young lady approached me: are you "rockslider", yes, "There are some brethren whom would like to meet with you"

…

Have I told this story here before (holocaust victims)?

[_Chap]

[...]

I remember when the COB was built. It was not well received by people with a love of Salt Lake City heritage since it neither fit in with the surrounding area and blocked many of the lovely views. The original plans did not work out well either: the two flaming altars at the base were turned into planters after the "fire fountains" wouldn't work. That's why there were incongruous over-large planters at the base near the hemispherical maps (not sure if they are still there, I suppose I could Google earth to find out). It still sticks out like a sore thumb, but with all the recent gutting of downtown, not the mention the shameful sectioning of main street and moving of the Brigham Young monument, it will probably blend in to the new generic cityscape under planning. I've never understood the penchant for historical destruction by the Mormon hierarchy. I guess it goes hand in hand with the "cookie cutter" directives for ward houses. The lost architecture and distinctive ambiance of many neighborhoods in Salt Lake, Provo and elsewhere are truly tragic. If you tour the Conference Building for example, you'll hear little about aesthetics, design and architecture compared to the price lists your guide will quote about how much the materials cost and the great pains taken to import them!

As I said on the thread from which this one came:

Maybe this is just a result of photographic perspective, or maybe I am over-sensitive - but both the COB and the Hotel Utah seem to me to be massive acts of architectural disrespect to the Temple. They are simply out of scale with it in a way that makes it look quite diminished.

If this effect is real, was it ever discussed when plans for these new buildings were tabled? Did no one speak up in favor of structures more in keeping with a building that most people in Salt Lake City presumably hold to be sacred?

I am trying, and failing, to imagine what would happen if the Roman Catholic church, an organization that is huge in comparison with the CoJCoLDS, proposed to put up anything as obtrusive in view of St Peter's in Rome.

Has the church no taste? Or does it just love big stuff, which may impress people into thinking it is God's One True Church on earth, rather than a quite marginal group that has been (in terms of self-identified religious allegiance) stuck at 1.4% of the US population for most of the last decade?

[_Blixa]

As I said on the thread from which this one came:

Maybe this is just a result of photographic perspective, or maybe I am over-sensitive - but both the COB and the Hotel Utah seem to me to be massive acts of architectural disrespect to the Temple. They are simply out of scale with it in a way that makes it look quite diminished.

If this effect is real, was it ever discussed when plans for these new buildings were tabled? Did no one speak up in favor of structures more in keeping with a building that most people in Salt Lake City presumably hold to be sacred?

I am trying, and failing, to imagine what would happen if the Roman Catholic church, an organization that is huge in comparison with the CoJCoLDS, proposed to put up anything as obtrusive in view of St Peter's in Rome.

Has the church no taste? Or does it just love big stuff, which may impress people into thinking it is God's One True Church on earth, rather than a quite marginal group that has been (in terms of self-identified religious allegiance) stuck at 1.4% of the US population for most of the last decade?

Not true of the Hotel Utah, though, that must have been the perspective of the shot. Man, that was a gorgeous building at one time! Can't say what's like now as I doubt I will have occasion to visit it again. Moksha and I once had a thread somewhere on the board about our reminiscences...

[_Ceeboo]

I am finding this thread to be so interesting, informative, and simply put, really really neat!

Thanks to all for sharing (I appreciate it much) :)


Peace and to all those Mom's out there, Happy Mother's Day.

Ceeboo

[_Joseph]

A giant phallic symbol for white power in lds-inc. Nothing more than that. And full of jaywalking idiots who hustle across the street to get their cold caffiene fix.

The real power brokers are at 47E S Temple. A building that is not friendly or inviting at all and houses the offices of some of the crabby, ill tempered and rudest moronic types in mormonland.

[_Simon Belmont]

A giant phallic symbol ...jaywalking idiots ...not friendly or inviting at all ...crabby, ill tempered and rudest moronic types in mormonland.

Why do you act like this? Why do you say deliberately offensive things toward someone else's faith and the people thereof? In short: what is wrong with you?

Also, you have an unanswered question in your Journal of Discourses thread.

[_Joseph]

What's wrong slimey? You can't take the white penis palace as a phallic symbol of lds-inc? And I am sure tubbytommy is not the model they used.

Big, white, tall, erect, rock hard and two oblong balls at the base and you don't think it is a phallic symbol over SLC area?

lds-inc leaders were really pissed when a taller building was built in SLC as it took away their claim as the tallest building. Somehow lds-inc's inferiority complex pushes them to fanatastical claims and effort, something they have been plagued with ever since joe the coxman claimed to sleep with so many hot babes at the command of God.

[_jon]

Well, the Mormons are all about getting married and having kids so perhaps a phallus (albeit no longer the biggest In Salt Lake City but size isn't everything) is an appropriate organisational symbol...

[_beefcalf]

The church archieves used to be on the first floor of the tower. It was open access for years. I wonder if it is still located there?

Anyway, a little story about the day I visited the COB'ings:

I've been in the fp/q12 building before, meet very briefly with a very unhappy BKP who handed me off to a couple Seventies. I went there expecting that it would be the beginning of my excommunication (fully active TBM working at the temple at the time).

In the old COB there's a long narrow hallway from the front door to the back of the building where there is a set of stairs and the elevator. There is an armed guard sitting at a desk by the stairs. One bright and sunny Monday, I walked up to that guard and handed him a full paper lunch bag full of 3.5" floppies, a letter and several printed lists. I told that guard that BKP would want to read the letter and that someone was going to want to speak with me.

He assured me that no one would contact me and that I should go home. I assured him that indeed someone would want to talk to me and that I would be waiting over in the first floor of the tower.

I paced the floors over there for about 45 minutes when this very nice young lady approached me: are you "rockslider", yes, "There are some brethren whom would like to meet with you"

…

Have I told this story here before (holocaust victims)?

I haven't heard it before! Please! Tell it again!