Brad Hart
My name is Brad Hart. I live in the Fairpark neighborhood of Salt Lake City, Utah. I have been here for the past two years and have lived in
Growing up I always wanted an old house. I would build old houses out of Legos that would look Victorian. Or, I would try to. My family would go to see the lights in
When I left my parents home I moved to Salt Lake City; first I moved into an apartment downtown with some friends and I lived in that apartment for about four years. After that I had bought a house near Liberty Park and stayed there for four years. That neighborhood saw a lot of change in those four years. I sold my home in the summer of 2006 which was the height of the real estate bubble. Prices were as high as they had ever been and I made a ton of money. It was awesome.
I was impatient and wanted another house right away. I wanted a house I could restore. I started looking but all I could afford was pretty much west of the freeway. I spent a couple of months riding my bike around the west side until I found one that I liked. Then I took a chance and went for it.
The house I bought is in the Fairpark neighborhood; actually just across the street from the Utah State Fair Park. I probably looked at 45 houses. I looked at many that had been ‘re-muddled’ - that’s what we call it when a historic house has been remodeled and kind of ruined. Many had their character taken to the dump, but this one hadn’t. I have been working the past two years on restoring my house.
It had character and potential and it was cheap because it was really run down. But I could see through the peeling paint and stuff. I could see it was very solid. It was structurally sound and it had a lot of its original character.
Moving into the Fairpark neighborhood I didn’t have big expectations. I really want the neighborhood to get better and, unrealistically, I want it to get better fast. You never realize how much is actually going to change in two years. Not much is happening. Yet.
I feel like this neighborhood is on the tipping point, and I don’t know which way it’s going to tip. Is it going to get better, or is it never going to change?
We have some big challenges to overcome in this neighborhood; you could probably boil everything down to poverty. When you are struggling just to put food on the table and pay rent you don’t care if your house looks like crap. You don’t care about what else is going on or getting involved or trying to volunteer. It sometimes seems like no one cares. You try and reach out to people and they won’t, they just don’t respond. That’s hugely frustrating.
I want to see this neighborhood get better. That was part of the reason I moved here and I knew it was a risk. But, this neighborhood is rad. It has a ton of historic houses and lots of character. I think it has more character than a lot of the east side. There is more diversity in cultures here, lots of different perspectives, and lots of different foods.
I want our neighborhood to be the coolest neighborhood in the city. I think it really could be. We have cool stuff that nobody else has and nobody else will ever have.
The potential is there and I think it will happen. We’re going to have the biggest art installation in the whole state. We have anchors like the Fair Grounds, Mestizo, and the Red Iguana. The space here is just hugely under-utilized. We are going to have Trax soon and I think that will make the area more attractive to people who want to live close to the city and have mass transit available. I’m a little in love with the idea of being an ‘urban pioneer.’ Like helping out and moving to sketchy area and turning it into something better.
