East Village
Calgary’s Downtown East Village is the perfect marriage of all that is
old and new in our city. This riverside utopia encompasses everything
from a national historic site to the pride of Music Mile: Studio Bell, home
of the National Music Centre. The museum, concert hall and recording
studio hybrid envisions a more artistic future for a city that began as
a humble North West Mounted Police outpost. Time stands still at Fort
Calgary, which keeps watch at the confluence of the Bow and Elbow
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THE ESSENTIAL CALGARY 2018
rivers. Exhibits on the fur trade, early settler life and the history of our
world-famous Mounties remind visitors just how far our young city
has come in little more than a century. Follow the riverwalk along lush
banks to find the historic Simmons Building, a local favourite. Once
a mattress factory, this brick and mortar building is now home to a
butcher, baker and coffee maker—a hipster’s paradise for the thousands
of young professionals inhabiting the area. While the historic and urban
collide on the mainland, the nearby George C. King Bridge links city
living to the reclaimed parkland of St. Patrick’s Island, which is itself
just a skipping stone’s throw away from the Calgary Zoo.