Comments about ‘Japanese traditions, heritage celebrated’

Hey, Andy, you use the word "historic." How come? You don't say why it's historic. You and your newspaper use that word a lot. What do you mean by historic?

That's a very good question. Why does Andy say historic Japantown street, after all it was only recently named Japantown street. I remember when I used to go to Japanese town in the 1950's, it was on that same street, but it extended to the east another couple of blocks, right where the Salt Palace is now. The county and the Salt Palace took over the street in the 1960s and that pretty much ended Japanese town in downtown Salt Lake City. The Buddhist Temple and the Japanese Church of Christ on that block of first south is all that remains from the original historic street. The Pagoda restaurant used to be on that street along with many Japanese owned businesses that are no longer in existence. Some of the businesses moved to other areas of the city, such as Sage Farm, which is now Japan Sage Market on about 15th south and Main, State Noodle, which moved to about 800 south and state, Sunrise restaurant and fish market which moved to about 2300 south state street. So what was once Japan town was dispersed, that's why the street is historic though.

Oh, wow! My friend is the girl in the picture, with the hair pins and the parasol. We were the big group of people dressed in kimonos that were walking around with her!