Avenue de l'Opera Morning Sunshine

The Avenue de l'Opéra was created from 1864 to 1879 as part of Haussmann's renovation of Paris. Haussmann's renovation was a vast public works program commissioned by Emperor Napoléon III and directed by his the prefect of the Seine, Georges-Eugène Haussmann between 1853 and 1870. It included the demolition of crowded and unhealthy medieval neighborhoods, the building of wide avenues, parks and squares, the annexation of the suburbs surrounding Paris, and the construction of new sewers, fountains and aqueducts. It is situated in the center of the city, running northwest from the Louvre to the Palais Garnier, the primary opera house of Paris (until the opening of the Opéra Bastille in 1989). The Avenue de l'Opéra was an important thoroughfare in Hausmann's traffic scheme, since it linked the rue de Rivoli at the Louvre to the grands boulevards near the Opéra and gave better access to the wealthy neighborhoods being developed at that time in northwest Paris. It had the additional advantage that the demolition required for its construction cleared the area between the Louvre and the grand boulevards, which had been occupied by a slum district, dense with poor-quality housing and numerous narrow streets, that was considered unhealthy and dangerous.