The tarp came off on August 1. Salt Lake County artist Jiyoun Lee-Lodge stood next to the roundabout at 900 South and 1100 East holding a scale model of her new design, "Open Your Eyes," and City Cast Salt Lake's 801 Day crowd got its first look at the whale's second coat of paint. The unveiling was part of the 801 Day celebration on Saturday, Aug. 1, 2026.
If you have lived in 9th and 9th for the last four years, you have watched Michael Murdock's rainbow "Point of Reference" fade a little each summer, and you probably assumed the whale itself was the constant. It isn't. The Salt Lake City Arts Council commissions a new artist or artist-led team to repaint the whale every 3–5 years to represent the ever-changing neighborhood. This is the first refresh since the sculpture went up. The block you walk it through is not the block that existed under the old paint.
That is the small argument of this post. The whale is the neighborhood's clock, and the clock just ticked.
What Actually Changed on August 1
Lee-Lodge's design replaces Murdock's rainbow-hued mural. Out of the Blue sits at the intersection of 900 S and 1100 E, depicts the top half of a breaching humpback whale, is locally referred to as "The 9th and 9th Whale," and was designed by Stephen Kesler with the Salt Lake City Public Arts Program. The whale stands 23 feet tall and extends 40 feet across in body and flippers.
The old paint had a history. Out of the Blue was painted with the mural Point of Reference by local artist Michael Murdock as of April 2022. Between April 2022 and August 2026 the whale outlasted a record snow year, an international sister-city trip, a garden gnome protest, and enough merch to fill a shelf at the Sugar House REI. It also outlasted a specific version of the block underneath it.
Lee-Lodge's mural is titled "Open Your Eyes." That is a fitting instruction for anyone who has not walked the four corners recently.
The Block That Grew Up Under Murdock's Whale
Consider what showed up in walking distance of the roundabout during Point of Reference's tenure.
- Sugar Moose Candy opened at 1058 E 900 South selling Swedish candy. A 1,600-square-foot unit at 1058 E 900 South became the new home of a candy store named Sugar Moose Candy, according to a permit filed with Salt Lake City, and the store recently opened.
- Beaumont Coffee Bar filed for a permit at the western end of Trolley Square. One of those coffee shops will be on the western end of Trolley Square mall, located at 602 E. 500 South, where Beaumont Coffee Bar filed for a commercial building permit for a 663-square-foot coffee bar kiosk within the existing Trolley Square mall.
- Telegraph Exchange Lofts turned a historic building at the corner into apartments. Telegraph Exchange Lofts is a new residential development in Salt Lake City's 9th and 9th neighborhood, toured in early March 2026.
- The whale's own family grew. In early July 2026 a miniature replica created by Michael Clafin of the whale was left underneath the big whale, and someone came to the neighborhood to write a small message in chalk, calling it a "miracle."
None of these things existed on the day Murdock climbed down the scaffolding. That is the point. The mural you saw on your morning coffee walk in 2022 was hanging over an intersection with different tenants, different residential density, and, memorably, no baby whale in the roundabout.
"Every 3 to 5 years by a local artist" is the Arts Council's way of saying the sculpture is designed to lag the neighborhood, not lead it.
Kesler was blunt about the intent from the start. He described 9th and 9th as "unexpected and out of the blue. A community where people from all backgrounds, beliefs and ideas migrate and feel a sense of belonging. A community that bursts through expectations, that commands respect for nature, and varied ideas and identities." The sculpture was never meant to be a fixed monument. It was meant to be a canvas that would fall behind, and get repainted.
Why This Matters for a Wednesday Evening
Practical translation for the person who lives four blocks away and has zero interest in art discourse: the walk you took last summer has more stops on it now, and the anchor at the middle of it looks different.
The old script for a 9th and 9th evening was tight and well-worn. You could walk to restaurants like Vessel Kitchen, East Liberty Tap House and Pago, enroll in a yoga class at Centered Street Yoga, meet a friend for coffee at Coffee Garden, or see a movie at Tower Theater, Salt Lake City's oldest operating theater. That is still the spine. What has changed is what fits between those stops.
An assembled August evening, using the current inventory:
- 6:30 p.m. Coffee Garden or the new Beaumont kiosk if you want to see the Trolley Square end. The kiosk sits inside the mall's western entrance, which puts you three blocks from the roundabout on foot.
- 7:15 p.m. Detour to the whale. Lee-Lodge's design is still new enough that people will be photographing it in low light. Look for the small chalk marks that keep appearing around the base since Clafin's miniature showed up in July.
- 7:45 p.m. Dinner at Pago or East Liberty Tap House. Both have patios that catch the last light on 900 South.
- 9:00 p.m. Sugar Moose Candy for something you cannot pronounce, or Tower Theatre if the marquee is showing something you have not seen twice.
- 9:45 p.m. Walk home the long way past the roundabout. The whale reads differently at night than it did that morning, which is a feature of a mural you have not memorized yet.
The Calendar Between Now and the Festival
The block has a public deadline on it. The 2026 9th & 9th Street Festival is Saturday, September 19 from 10 am to 6 pm. Between the mural unveiling and that festival, six weekends will run through the neighborhood with the new paint on the sculpture. That is a short window for taking in a version of 9th and 9th before the fall crowds thicken it up.
Two things to know if you are still oriented to the older festival footprint:
- The expected street closure for the festival is from 800 East to Lincoln on 900 South and from 800 South to Belmont on 900 East. If you drive, plan around it now. If you walk, that is roughly the shape of your normal evening loop.
- The 9th and 9th Street Festival is sponsored and hosted by the East Liberty Park Community Organization and was conceived as a way to bring neighbors together. That framing matters. The festival is not a tourist draw dressed up as a neighborhood event. It is the reverse.
What Reading the Mural Tells You About the Rest of the Block
Here is the second-order point. Public art in a landlocked state that repaints itself on a schedule is unusual. Most cities install a piece and let it weather. Salt Lake City wrote turnover into the contract. The council said the whale will change as much as the neighborhood has in recent years, and the sculpture will host a "rotating program of murals" on its surface, which the council says will allow "new interpretations of the artwork throughout its lifespan."
That is a small but real piece of local knowledge. If you own a home here, the sculpture you point out to visitors is going to change under you, and the block is going to change with it. The next repaint is scheduled for somewhere between 2029 and 2031. What arrives in the storefronts between now and then is the actual answer to the question the mural asks. Right now the answer includes a Swedish candy shop, a coffee kiosk inside Trolley Square, a converted historic apartment building at the corner, and a tiny second whale under the big one.
The other, less flattering answer is that not every proposal makes it. The city rejected an attempt to bring a new wine bar to the 9th & 9th neighborhood. Both directions of the churn are worth watching if you plan to be here through the next mural cycle.
A Note for the Homeowner Already Here
Most guides written about 9th and 9th are written for people who do not live in 9th and 9th. They lead with walkability, the Tower marquee, and a stock line about eclectic architecture. If you have owned a bungalow south of 900 South for any real length of time, you know that description hasn't described the neighborhood accurately since about 2019.
The more useful frame is the one the Arts Council quietly wrote into the whale's paperwork. This is a block that assumes its own presentation will be out of date within a few years, and puts a mural repaint on the calendar to force the acknowledgement. That is a rare municipal instinct. It also happens to be a good instruction for the residents who live under it: look up at the sculpture, then look at what has opened on your walk home, and update your mental map accordingly.
Lee-Lodge's title does most of the work for us.
If you are thinking about what your own home is worth on this changing block, or curious what a recent 9th and 9th sale actually means for your address, the Secrist Team can walk it with you. Request a free home valuation and get a read on the neighborhood from someone tracking it in real time.
