A grid of stone houses laid out in 1868 by the German Templer Society, a Protestant communal movement that left Württemberg to settle in the Holy Land. The settlers were expelled during the British Mandate, but their solid Swabian stone buildings — many inscribed with German Bible verses — remain along the wide central avenue, Ben Gurion Boulevard.
The street now runs straight up from the harbour to the base of the Bahá'í Gardens and is one of the most pleasant places to walk in central Haifa. Restaurants and cafés fill the verandas in the evening and weekends draw crowds for the long view up the gardens to the shrine.