Al Rasheed Street was opened on 23.7.1916 and first named Khalil Pasha Avenue , but called Main Street by the population . The street was renamed into Al Rasheed Street in the mid50-s , honouring the Abbasid Caliph Harun Al Rasheed .
Originally the area of Al Rasheed Street integrated residential alley-ways and public Suqs and Khans . Size and typology of the new avenue were dictated by vehicular traffic and by western town planning models . In the first decades , Al Rasheed was an unsealed road . With paving of the street in the second half of the 50s Al Rasheed developed to a flourishing boulevard , the most popular promenade for the Baghdad population .
In an urban planning sense Al Rasheed Street can be considered as the first modern street ever to be realized in Baghdad as well as in Iraq with its unique distinct style . The buildings on both east and west sides are characterized by its typical colonnaded walkways and more or less uniform twostorey buildings .
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