Saturday’s Nihon Matsuri festival turned the Japantown area of Salt Lake City into a lively gathering and celebration with martial arts, dancing, food and music.
Yet, Salt Lake City’s billionaire-backed plans for a new sports and entertainment district that would surround the area loomed over the festivities just as the Salt Palace Convention Center looms over the neighborhood, a reminder of the buildings and businesses that were pushed out of Japantown so its predecessor, the Salt Palace, could be built.
And while project leaders say it will ultimately improve Japantown, local leaders who remember losing the culture hub to eminent domain and development in the 1960s are skeptical.
“I grew up here, and I remember as a child coming to Japantown and it was a cultural gathering place in those days,” said Floyd Mori, the festival founder and chair. “That was lost. It just went poof because all the commercial establishments were eliminated.”
(Brock Marchant | The Salt Lake Tribune) Floyd Mori, the founder and chair of Salt Lake City Nihon Matsuri festival, remembers the impact it made when community members and businesses were forced out of Japantown for the Salt Palace in the '60s.
After World War II, he said, most Japantowns across the country faded away, Utah’s being a rare exception as many relocated to the community and it “flourished.” But even after making it through Japanese internment in the United States, it did not last through development.
He hopes the sports and entertainment district plans will “begin to incorporate a little bit more of that Japanese town culture into this section where Japantown used to be.”
He’d like to see a community center and more commercial establishments. That cultural element, he said, would be good for not only the Japanese community, but everyone.
Right now, he believes Japantown is an example of rich cultures lost in Utah.
Troy Watanabe, the serving president and minister’s assistant of the Salt Lake Buddhist Temple that sits in Japantown, emphasized that point as he looked to the area surrounding the temple.
“This city wasn’t built without immigrants,” he said. “Think of the Basque community. We had the Italians, the Greeks. It just was a thriving ethnic area, and I think those are the people that actually built this city.”
He said that while temple leaders have met with entities involved in the sports complex plans and have been given a seat at the table, he worries that their concerns aren’t being considered in the plans he sees or hears about.
“The Japanese Church of Christ across the street looks like they’re going to be surrounded by the tallest buildings that we have ever had in Salt Lake,” he said. “Our area, too, is going to be shadowed by big hotels behind us, so we don’t see the actual cooperation that we’re hearing as much.”
Referring to the crowded streets around the temple, Watanabe also worried the sports complex plans would not accommodate the infrastructure Japantown needs for festivals and gatherings, though he said the conversations have yet to take place.
While he said he doesn’t feel like he’s being uprooted, he wants there to be more cooperation between sports district stakeholders and Japantown.
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