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Show Salt Lake's Avenues Listed;on-'Register;:; ; Property owners have expressed ex-pressed the following senti- . ,ments in letters to the National Register office in Washington, D.C.; "We look forward to the opportunity to have our neighborhood put into the National Register of Historic Places. Hopefully it will provide increased support to prevent new developments from upsetting the character of the Avenues..." "...I have lived in Wash- f ington, D.C., Philadelphia, and Cleveland. None of these cities has an area to match (the' Avenues) area of Salt Lake.... While the vast majority of the response wis supportive, several comments opposing the. district centered on the feeling that National Register Regist-er status would interfere with property ownets rights to develop their property, or that National Register status would increase their property proper-ty taxes. Notarianni explained explain-ed that National' Register status has no direct effect on property tax rates, and the actions, of National Register property owners can only be restricted if they accept federal money for use on the property. t The , storic and architectural architec-tural survey of the Avenues which resulted' in the National Nation-al Register listing was conducted by the preservation"-research office of the Utah StdteiHistorical Society undr a'contract to Salt Lake City Corporation. The project took the full-time efforts of much of the Society's staff, said Notarianni; especially . Karl Haglund. the Society's ; architectural historian, Kath-ryn Kath-ryn MacKay, Jessie Embry, ,, John McCormick, Lois Harris. Harr-is. Henry Whiteside, Mark ; Lundgren. and Thomas Han- ' chert. The historv and architec-ture architec-ture of the Avenues will be further documented in a forthcoming Historical Socie- . ty, publication titled. "The Avenues of Salt Lake City"r by Karl T. Haglund r and Philip F. Notarianni. The well illustrated book will be ; available from the Society in December of 1980." , After nearly three years of concentrated effort, the Avenues Ave-nues Historic District in Salt Lake City has been officially . listed in the National Register Regist-er of Historic Places, announced annou-nced the Utah State Historical Histori-cal Society (Division of State History). The Avenues Historic Dis-; trict, which includes over 100 square blocks of the lower ' Avenues, is important as one of Salt Lake's oldest residential residen-tial areas and as the most significant neighborhood in the state documenting residential resi-dential architecture from 1880 to 1920,' said Philip F. Notarianni, the Society's historian who coordinated research on the Avenues for the National Register nomination. nomi-nation. The Avenues was the first platted section of Salt Lake City to deviate from the original city plan of ten-acre blocks, patterned after the "Plat of the City of Zion." The two-and-one-half acre blocks and narrower streets . of the Avenues were probab- ly a consequence' of the steeper slopes, and lack, of water on what was known early, as the "dry. bench,". ,Notarianni explained. The . distinct character of this district is seen in the hilly terrain, architectural styles (which were primarily of the Victorian period), building r heights, setbacks, and spacing spac-ing as well as landscape elements such as remaning walls, iron ."'fences;; and tree-lined streets,' : ; . ; The Avenues functioned primarily as a middle-class suburb for; the downtown commercial district. : By the . 1890s trolley lines existed on First. Third, and Sixth Avenues. Artisans, merch-; ants, LDS CHurch officials, mining entrepreneurs, local governmental: officials, edu-cators, edu-cators, physicians, attorney's, attorn-ey's, and laborers all com-, bined to make the Avenues a diverse residential section of Salt Lake City. Also includ-. ing a variety of service related enterprises, the Ave-nues Ave-nues developed into an ' increasingly mixed area, said Notarianni. ' Listing in the Natidnal . Register recognizes the out: standing historic and archir -tectural character of the y Avenues, commented Notarianni. Notar-ianni. Public opinion on the " historic district, solicited at public meetings in the . summer of 1979 and again by letter to all property owners , within the proposed historic district in the spring of 1980. . has, JjQQU pyersbelmiogiy supportive of the listing |