| The King Edward Hotel has got the blues. Once known as "The Home of the Blues" for the soul-searching music that was presented on its stage, the 100-year-old structure commonly known as the King Eddy has been shut down and boarded up since August, 2004.
Purchased by the City of Calgary in 2004, the King Eddy is located in the East Village. Once a thriving community, in recent years the East Village has become a nuisance to the City of Calgary, with the mayor describing it as a place "characterized by urban blight."
Now a group called The Friends of the King Eddy hope to convince city officials that the hotel is worth preserving.
"The East Village is going to be totally redeveloped," says Phil Dack, who is spearheading the group. "We’re concerned we’re going to lose the historical flavour."
Dack say that the group is "not your typical community activists."
Boasting everyone from lawyers to waitresses, The Friends of the King Eddy now has a membership of more than 100.
"What the Palliser (Hotel) was to the rich and influential, the Eddy was to the poor, lost and blacks," says Dack. "We’re trying to save one of the historical buildings of Calgary – it’s for historical and cultural reasons."
Construction of the King Edward Hotel began in 1905 and from the time it opened its doors, it was known as a haven for ranchers and new arrivals to the city who were seeking a room to rent and a place to enjoy a cold drink. The hotel was so successful that in 1911 the original owner, Louis D. Charlebois, added five storeys to the three-storey structure in order to accommodate its growing number of guests.
For much of its history, the hotel had a separate bar for black people, until Homer Meers – who owned and managed the hotel from 1946 to 1962 – began to serve free beer to its black patrons in an act designed to protest the discriminatory practice of segregating customers based on skin colour.
In the early 1980s, the Eddy became known as "The Home of the Blues" and lived up to its reputation by hosting scores of some of the genre’s best-known performers, including John Hammond, Pinetop Perkins, Otis Rush and Buddy Guy.
Contributing to its mystique were the Saturday afternoon jams, where local musicians (and occasionally world-renowned figures) could play onstage together to appreciative audiences.
Despite its storied past, Dack says The Friends of the King Eddy are aware of the sorry state the building is in and the fact that it was condemned in 2004 after mould was discovered throughout the structure.
"Technically, it can be done," says Dack, referring to the possibility of rehabilitating the Eddy. "But it’s so polluted it’s expensive even to tear down."
That’s a fact that Kathleen Young from the Corporate Properties section of the City of Calgary reiterates when contacted about the status of the King Eddy.
"It’s going to require a lot of money," says Young. "It may require more than what a reasonable person is willing to do."
Young, who is the project manager for the East Village redevelopment initiative, says the fate of the King Eddy will depend on whatever planning decisions are made about the Fourth Street connector.
Part of the East Village Area Redevelopment Plan is to build a new connector/underpass on Fourth Street S.E. to improve access to the area from the downtown core.
Where that leaves the Eddy is an open question, as the future of the now derelict building is in the hands of city planners who will make recommendations to Calgary’s city council at a future time.
"It’s not on a tear-down list," says Young. "It will stay there until other planning decisions are made. It’s council’s decision."
Ald. Druh Farrell, who represents the area, says she supports saving the facade of the King Eddy at the very least.
"The building itself is not that significant when it comes to its historical value," she says. "It’s the relationship to the blues, the music."
Farrell adds that the City of Calgary continues to negotiate with the Canadian Pacific Railway for the land required to complete the Fourth Street underpass that will link downtown Calgary with the East Village and Victoria Park.
"We don’t want to make the mistakes of the past," she says. "We want the underpass to be pedestrian-friendly."
Farrell adds that once planning is complete for the underpass, the future of the King Eddy and the land where it stands will become clear. The Ward 7 alderman says that this will most likely mean the building and land being sold to a party that’s willing to incorporate the Blues into its future plans.
One of the possibilities Farrell holds out is the King Eddy’s facade being incorporated into a new building that could become part of the University of Calgary’s efforts to establish a downtown campus in the East Village.
"We are entertaining buyers," she says. "It has to be a transparent process."
To find out more about the campaign to save the King Edward Hotel, go to www.savethekingeddy.ca or e-mail info@savethekingeddy.ca. |
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