Utah Church

Instead of posting a Harlem church today, I thought it would be nice to show a Utah church. Utah is like Harlem--there is a church around every corner. Of course they're all LDS churches in Utah, whereas you have a huge mix in Harlem. Also, the more modern LDS chapels are not very unique--they are nice but built quickly and by a formula that allows for low cost, so they end up all looking very similar. However, there are some real gems in Utah, some chapels built back when more time and effort was spent beautifying the building. This is the Wells Chapel in Salt Lake City, where I went to church as a little kid. My family lived across the street from it for a few years. I love the decorative ceramic panel above the doors, which features entwined leaves and grape clusters.

The Wells Chapel was built in 1920 and is full of beautiful dark wood panelling on the inside of the lobby, hallways, and chapel. The chapel has green stained glass windows, and the upper back window panels fold open to reveal choir seating. Can you imagine being in a Sunday meeting with a choir singing from above, like angels?

The chapel slopes down to a stand nestled beneath an archway, backed with a huge white bas-relief sculpture of a scriptural scene. They certainly don't built LDS chapels like this these days!

Sorry this Sunday church is being posted a little late! It's been a very busy couple of days. I'll have a lot of blogging to do to recap all of my Utah adventures, so stay tuned. Now, I have to get to bed because we're going to get up early and go get fresh maple bars for breakfast and then shop for boots at Smithfield Implements.