The Avenues, Salt Lake City

The Avenues is a neighborhood in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is named after the perfectly gridlike, closely laid out roads called Avenues (numbers, 1st - 18th) and Streets (letters, A - V). First surveyed in the 1850s, the Avenues became Salt Lake City's first neighborhood. Today, the Avenues neighborhood is generally considered younger, more progressive, and somewhat "artsy" when compared to other neighborhoods. Many young professionals choose to live there due to the culture and easy commute to downtown.. It is also one of the most important strongholds of the Democratic political party in Utah.Layout and geographyThe Avenues neighborhood lies on the "north east bench" of the Wasatch Mountains in Salt Lake City. The southern boundary of the Avenues is South Temple Street (1st Avenue is the next street north). Heading north, the Avenues neighborhood is built up onto the lower slopes of the mountains.The north-south roads in the Avenues, which slope up the hillside, begin at Canyon Road and then are lettered from "A" to "U" Street and then "Virginia Street", from west to east. The fairly level east-west roads are numbered 1st to 18th Avenues heading northward from South Temple Street. The rigid grid system breaks down around 13th Avenue, as more recent developments farther north have taken a more serpentine bend. The 'major' streets used more for through-traffic, particularly for their connections at South Temple Street to city arteries, are B, E, I, and Virginia; the 'major' avenues are 2nd, 3rd, 6th, 11th, and 13th.The Avenues lie just northeast of downtown Salt Lake City and just east—over City Creek Canyon—from Capitol Hill. The neighborhood to the east of the lower (below 11th) Avenues, known as Federal Heights, is traditionally thought of as beginning north of South Temple Street and East of Virginia Street. While physically part of the Avenues, the Federal Heights neighborhood may be considered as generally more affluent than the Avenues, with larger, more stately homes. To the north of Federal Heights is a more recently developed area called Arlington Hills. Compared to the neighborhoods to the east, the Avenues are in places quite steep as they climb the foothills to the north.