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What happened to hutong in most of Old Beijing at the turn of the century? (Para. 9) During the 1990s and early 2000s, as the Wangs hawked cigarettes in Ju’er Hutong, developers sold most of old Beijing. Few sections of the city were protected. Whenever a hutong was doomed, its buildings were marked with a huge painted character surrounded by a circle: 拆 “pull down, dismantle.”