Perception #1 Jordan Moroz

These places I found to be most interesting as I was doing this assignment. I think that these pictures accurately describe downtown Provo, a little bit older but coming more alive every day with new construction and an eclectic style of buildings both above and below ground. From my perspective, the picture of the 4 windows in a house is so interesting because half of the house is below ground! Before I came to BYU I had heard of the underground Provo scene but I didn't think that it meant literally it was underground. Coming from California, not many of the house have basements but here it seems that many people have basements and that many of my friends rent them out instead of living in a traditional apartment complex. This has taught me that your perception is changed based on your knowledge and your background or the angle that you are coming from, what might be normal to someone who grew up here in Utah is so different to me. The next picture (a panorama) that struck me was how on one street there was a quiet suburb of houses and then across the street are huge buildings and the start of the shops of downtown Provo. For me this is also not normal, I am used to city life and suburbia being completely separate but here they coexist and add to the charm of downtown Provo. I guess I never realized how right in the middle of some quiet old houses were big companies like Zion's Bank, NuSkin, and many Federal buildings, I thought that the Central Square Carmike Cinemas blank movie board was interesting because it portrays a defunct old building that has since gone out of business but behind it was a booming area where several new business building gleam in the sunlight. It seems interesting to me that a small business is going under but big businesses are coming to downtown Provo like Google Fiber and Nuskin because they are thriving. This theater went bankrupt in 1997 and has been sitting there abandoned for 18 years in a prime real estate location, I think that it is interesting it has been there so long with no plans to build something else over it because where I am from, it would be demolished and have had maybe 2 or 3 business use the space by now. Also down the street from that is the next picture (a panorama) of the apartment or condos that are being built. That picture was interesting to me because downtown Provo at least to me seems really old, as evidence by a lot of businesses going under but the fact that there are new homes being built from my perspective means that the economy in this area of town is picking up. It also signifies that people want to live in this historic district of town and that although the style is modern it fits into the atmosphere of history meeting modern elements to form something that is uniquely Provo. At first I didn't really understand why they would use that space for apartments because most people I know prefer to live closer to campus but as I walked on the sidewalk I saw a lot of older people who seemed like they just got off work walking around. Then I realized that maybe in this part of Provo it wasn't about BYU or UVU but about jobs and careers. The last picture of the shed is supposed to symbolize the untapped space that I saw in downtown Provo. In California, every inch of space is used and is very expensive but the fact that someone is keeping this shed on a driveway by itself gives the impression that since they can build above and below ground, they are not in a dire need for space and everything has a spot of its own, some unique way of fitting into the story of downtown Provo. Who knows, maybe what looks to me like a ramshackle shed deserted in a driveway with no house is actually full of someone's most prized possessions. That is the great thing about perspective, and in addition downtown Provo, you can see so many different things based on what lens you decide to put on it. That is why I also included the picture of the castle-looking building in this post. It seems out of place against the backdrop of the Fresh Market sign and the Sherwin-Williams paint store but just like all of the other seemingly random aspects of downtown Provo I found out that this academy has actually been around for almost 30 years helping trouble youth with developmental issues. It's incredible how your perspective can change if you let it and if you are willing to look at something a little differently than you had before. I guess I never realized that even though it is considered 'downtown Provo' the definition of downtown is not the same as my definition of downtown. It doesn't have big skyscrapers or a bunch of businesses but somehow all of the buildings and people come together to make it an urban thriving community just south of one of the most conservative universities in the nation. It is an interesting perspective.