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CALGARY — The Cecil Hotel is the kind of landmark that gets noticed only once as commuters edge their way in and out of Calgary’s downtown. Its windows now boarded, the building is painted a shade of pale blue that seems to become invisible against the skyline in winter, when the light blanches everything except the city’s ever-growing garden of glass skyscrapers.

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This grey corner will soon be surrounded by even more modern monuments: the latest amenities, shops, restaurants and galleries are slated for development in what will become the condo haven of East Village, a 49-hectare development that is to become home to 11,500 Calgarians.

Calgary has been built by booms and destroyed by busts over the past century. Economic tides work like erosion here, leaving traces of a history that can barely be seen under the pressure of wealth and optimism.

As a result, the Cecil, standing for 100 years, is one of only six pre-First World War hotels still standing. Despite neglect, fires, bad paint jobs, a few poor renovations and more homicides than anyone’s bothered to count, the structure is in tolerable good shape. The heritage authority has declared the building salvageable. It retains much of its turn-of-the-century brick, wood and sandstone infrastructure.