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| Tuesday, May 21, 2013 |
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From Talmage’s The House of the Lord: It had been decided to surround the entire block by a substantial wall. The beginning of work on this enclosure was deferred through lack of material and men until August 3, 1852; but from that date it progressed with fair rapidity, and on May 23, 1857, the wall was finished, practically as it now stands. It extends a full city block–one eighth of a mile in each of its four directions; and, it is interesting to note, these dimensions are practically the same as those which, according to Josephus, enclosed the grounds on which stood the Temple of Herod. |
Wow, the wall predates the temple’s completion by decades. I wouldn’t have guessed that. |
More Talmage for those who like that sort of thing, and for those who haven’t seen the wall: The wall has a base of cut stone,–a red sandstone from the mountains on the east; the base is four feet in height, and supports courses of adobes which extend ten feet higher; then follows a coping of red sandstone on foot in thickness, giving the wall a total height of fifteen feet. The adobes are hidden by a durable dressing of cement. Passage to and from the square is provided for by large gates in the center of each of the four sides. When this wall was built, City Creek ran through Temple Block; the stream is now confined to a straight channel north of the block; and the arches under which the stream once passed may be seen in the base of the wall both in the east and west sides. This description doesn’t include the current corner entrance through the wall to the temple annex. |
More Talmage: While there are four doorways leading into the Temple directly from the outside, the usual entrance is through the detached building known as the Annex. Under ordinary conditions only Church authorities who assemble in council meetings enter by the outer doors, though on the rare occasions of special convocations of the Priesthood many pass those portals. I don’t know if this 1912 description matches the current arrangement; I was in the Salt Lake Temple only a few times, and as arJ wrote, it was hard to know where exactly I was. |
John beat me to it. I thought the wall went up before the temple was built. Somewhere in the back of my mind is a story that Brigham Young used the building of a wall as a works project for the unemployed since only so many people can work on the temple at a time. Not sure how true that is. But the story continues that when Johnson’s Army came through they found what appeared to be a farmer’s field (the temple site covered in dirt) surrounded by a wall in the middel of the city. |
Interesting post, arj. John Mansfield, thanks for posting that about the wall surrounding the Temple. It reminds me of that time when Dan Quayle came to Salt Lake City and gave a speech outside the Tabernacle one Morning, saying, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” |
I googled “The Construction of the Salt Lake Temple/images”, but did not find /see the wall. |
I couldn’t find anything about garments in the Google search I did with your terms, Bob, so I don’t to what you are referring. |
#8: It’s on page #8 of “images”. I am not sure if it shows “Garments”, and it may be a fake(?) But it is something new to me. |
Bob, I couldn’t find the garments image that you are referring to. Here is the article on “Garments” from the Encyclopedia of Mormonism (published by BYU with all the standard disclaimers about how it contains just the opinions of the contributors). The encyclopedia is from 1992, and is very slightly out of date, insofar as the church now makes non-white garments (I believe that they are olive-drab colored) for members of the military to wear. I haven’t been to Temple Square in several years, so this is just my recollection, and I beg for any clarification from those in the audience who live in and around the area: The wall is about 12 feet high. Since Temple Square takes up a full city block inside, there’s plenty of room to take photos of the buildings, and from the inside, there’s greenery all around the inside, so you don’t see the wall in photos taken inside temple square. Moreover, since all the buildings inside of temple square and most of the buildings (if not all) around temple square are more than 1-story tall, photographs of the square itself tend to dwarf the wall and make it barely noticeable. Here is an image of the temple from ca. 1890, where the wall is clearly visible because there’s basically nothing around to dwarf it in the outside. |
The Washington DC temple has a large entrance on the side. The baptistry has a separate entrance. The “main” door is huge and is never used. The primary entrance brings you into a very large foyer, with a waiting area off to the side. Past the recommend desk is a long, wide room; a “bridge” (over a driveway) that separates the entrance to the temple from the temple proper. There are several sofas and chairs here; it’s much like a waiting room, but serves as a sort of passage from “out there” to “in here.” Unlike the Salt Lake Temple, I never found it disorienting to be in the Washington DC Temple. It was always very clear when you left “out there” and where you were “in here.” When my older son was just seven years old, our stake had a family temple trip to DC. After doing a session in the morning, I supervised the seven year olds in the afternoon. There were seventeen of them 8o . One of the activities was a tour of the grounds. The groundskeeper who gave us the tour made a big deal about not going IN to the temple, but while we were standing at the entrance, the recommend desk worker came out and asked, “Would the children like to come inside?” The sudden intake of breath, followed by utter silence, of seventeen seven year-olds standing in the outer foyer of the temple, is something I still remember vividly. |
Here’s something I wrote I while back about my experience with approaching the Los Angeles Temple. One enters the Los Angeles Temple in degrees, first pulling off a major road into the temple grounds, then walking through the courtyard formed by the main structure and the west and east wings. Entering at dusk or leaving at night gives a beautiful view of West LA which always made me mindful of separating from the ordinary world for a few hours of worship and then coming back into it to live; in no place were my feelings more routinely drawn out in love toward the world. The elevated, slightly isolated position, something like God’s, was part of that feeling. |
On your original point, John: I agree that walls literally and figuratively separate a group from the broader community. But, for the self-isolating community, there are both positive and negative consequences of the separation. You mention some of the negative ones and some of the respondents have mentioned some of the positive ones. In the early church, the separation of the in-group “the Saints†from the out-group “the Gentiles,†gave early Mormons the strength to endure what persecutions they endured — but ironically their act of separation was the root cause of that reaction from the broader community. Mike Quinn gave a very interesting presentation on separation from the broader community at our recent JWHA conference: “The Ambiguous History of Us-vs.-Them in the Mormon Experience.†Somewhat surprisingly, Quinn had much to say in favor of the group separating itself out from the world. The line I remember came toward the end, “I come not to bury tribalism, but to praise it.†The address will be published in Vol. 29 of the JWHA Journal. The LDS Church has now established precedents for inviting outsiders into its Temples while keeping its sacred rites private. In both New York City and Hong Kong, where real estate is especially dear, the restricted temple area is built into certain floors of a structure that is open to the public on other floors. If LDS leaders decide that it’s more important to send a welcoming message to outsiders, future temples could always be built on that model. |
#13: ” The elevated, slightly isolated position, something like God’s, was part of that feeling.” |
I have never heard another living person use the word “discombobulate”–at least not consciously. I thought I made it up. I was married in the temple in 1975 and I don’t recall entering through a tunnel. I think we just came through the north gate and went through a door up some steps. But was a long, long time ago. I would make the guess, if you guys are correct that the wall went up first, that the saints (ie Brigham Young?) were very careful because of what happened to Nauvoo. |
DKL, The walls are even taller than that. In the photo you linked to they don’t look that imposing because that photo is taken from what appears to be a roughly 5 story elevation where the ZCMI center used to be. If you were a pedestrian walking around the perimeter of Temple Square the temple is pretty much invisible. The walls are 15 feet tall, solid, and imposing. Ann, That is interesting. I wonder what is the point of front doors that newer get used? John Hamer, I haven’t been in the Manhattan building since it was converted. I have always thought that the Hong Kong temple is very interesting in that it was purpose built as a mixed use facility. I still think that the walls in Salt Lake are problematic. Perhaps if the temple were in the middle of the block it wouldn’t be such an issue. I do think that it is sad that the only time people regularly view the exterior beauty of the temple is when they’re huddled into wedding photos on the steps of one of the doorways. I guess I appreciate being able to actually see a temple as I approach and enter it. Reflecting on it I think I’m even more disturbed by the issue with the entrance to the Salt Lake Temple than I am by the walls themselves, though the two are related. Is there some meaning to the fact that most people that enter the Salt Lake Temple do so from an underground (secret?) entrance? It seems that it was planned that way from the start. Why would someone build a building that you don’t enter by the front door? |
In fact, the church makes garments available in a number of required military and police uniform colors. My understanding is that you buy your regular uniform t-shirt and present it to church clothing with your temple recommend and military ID and they “garmentize” your t-shirt. This is how members of certain police departments get black garments. Black garments! |
dude you could get any woman on earth if you sported black garments. |
…If earth = a disco in Provo at 11:30 pm on a Friday night. |
Logan is much the same, without the wall. I noticed when I came out of it a few nights ago, for the first time. Looking back at the Temple, I had no idea where I’d been within the building – truthfully, if I had been anywhere within the building I could see. Very unlike Seattle, my home temple for a number of years, where you walk through the front door and I always had a rough idea where I was. I wondered if this would have any consequence to my feeling a personal attachment to this temple. ~ |
aRJ, when I took a tour of the temple, I was told that the doors faced Jackson County, and would be opened when Jesus came back. They’re very large. |
That’s odd; I was told that the doors are large because they face Tokyo and will be flung open when Rodan returns. |
Only half the doors face Jackson County and the other half face Tokyo. |
