History
The construction of Avenue Louise was commissioned in 1847 as a monumental avenue bordered by chestnut trees that would allow easy access to the popular recreational area of the Bois de la Cambre. It was also to be the first Haussmann-esque artery of the city. The name was chosen in honor of King Leopold II's eldest daughter, Princess Louise-Marie.
However, fierce resistance to the project was put up by the town of Ixelles - then, as now, a separate commune (local authority) from the City of Brussels - through whose territory the avenue was to run. After years of fruitless negotiations, Brussels finally annexed the narrow band of land needed for the avenue plus the Bois de la Cambre itself in 1864. That decision accounts for the unusual shape of today's City of Brussels and for Ixelles being split in two separate parts.
Read more about this topic: Avenue Louise
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“A great proportion of the inhabitants of the Cape are always thus abroad about their teaming on some ocean highway or other, and the history of one of their ordinary trips would cast the Argonautic expedition into the shade.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The history of the Victorian Age will never be written: we know too much about it.”
—Lytton Strachey (1880–1932)
“Look through the whole history of countries professing the Romish religion, and you will uniformly find the leaven of this besetting and accursed principle of action—that the end will sanction any means.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)