Walkabout #1-The Urban Room (dun dun dun)

The Urban Room…a place I never knew existed even though I’ve been to the Salt Lake Library quite a few times. Well, I guess I knew it existed, but sort of in the same way you know a side table exists. Its there, but you don’t consciously acknowledge it, except maybe to occasionally place a magazine on its wooden surface. So when I showed up a full half hour after everyone else due to a breakdown in communication, it was to explore a place I’d really never fully been to.

I was tired. The day had been an especially long one. Even though it was only the early afternoon on a not so busy day, I felt that lying down in front of the trax train and letting it run me over sounded especially nice. At least that way my to-do list would come to an abrupt, albeit gory end. But walking in from the outside heat into the Urban Room was a welcome relief. A walkabout sounded excellent compared to the Calculus homework that still lurked in my dorm room. I thanked the guy who held the door open for me, at least random strangers still do that type of thing. It was nice and I kind of wanted to use my customary “You’re a gentleman and a scholar” thank you, but I wasn’t sure how that would be taken. I didn’t want to get mugged on my first walkabout so I restrained myself.

The first thing I noticed about the UR was the feeling of an immense space. It was almost like relaxing in an outdoor public pool on a floaty bed with your eyes closed. Calm, to a point. Private, sort of. But mostly it just seemed peaceful in comparison to the hustle and bustle of public transportation. I mean, sure there was movement, but it was movement of a different kind. Movement in public transportation seems to have more of a feeling of urgent purpose, hundreds of people who just want to get from point A to point B in as little time as possible. Movement in the UR also seemed to have purpose (mostly from the front door to the library entrance) but it had more of a mall-like atmosphere to it. Sure, people still wanted to get from A to B, but meandering off course seemed like less of a deadly sin.

There were a few stores in the UR, but due to my tardiness the only one I explored was the library bookstore. But it was awesome! Maybe it just appealed to the notebook/pen/writing/random object loving freak I am inside, but I would totally go back just to look around. The inside assulted me with hundreds of different colors and really eccentric objects. They had an Edgar Allen Poe action figure, which I would have bought, except that I’m now a poor starving college student. The store itself seemed to contrast the large emptiness of the main portion of the UR, but it also mirrored just enough of its characteristics to keep continuity.

We also had the opportunity to talk to the shopkeeper lady. She gave off the vibe of being very eager to talk about the library, almost to the point where I started wondering if she didn’t have posters and scale replicas of it on her mantelpiece. (It seems that volunteers there are fairly overzealous, better than apathetic I suppose) I learned that the library was originally built off a design from a different library in a different state and that the shops didn’t get as much business as they had hoped for. That wasn’t surprising to me though. I’d been to the library quite a few times without even thinking about going in the shops. I couldn’t help but wonder why that was. Maybe making everything blend in to the over all schematic of the UR wasn’t such a good idea after all?

Because everything there did match, almost to the point of OCD-dom. The signs were the same and they went with the glass elevator and the stairs and the brick floors (imported from Israel or something) and the taupe color scheme…pretty much the whole nine yards of matchingness. Which did give it a feng shui type of vibe, but overall spending a lot of time there was almost unappealing to me for that very reason. I felt that it was the type of place where if I were to spill something I would be frowned upon by the Gods-of-All-Things-Book-Related. It almost seemed that because I wasn’t taupe, silver, and clear, I didn’t belong. Maybe that’s why I never explored the shops; I was intimidated by them.

To me, the name Urban Room conveys something much like a city, unmatching mostly, and chaotic, which is not how I’d describe the UR at all. It is pretty though, in all its color coordinated glory, I’ll give it that. And its different, I’ll give it that too. I just can’t help but wish it was more diverse on the inside I guess. Maybe I’m just intimidated by large, taupe spaces. And maybe it just wasn’t that great of day and I’m dissing on something really cool that I shouldn’t be. Who knows? I sure don’t.