When the Avenida Paulista, the city's most renowned street, was initially unfurled over a ridge south of the city center, it offered residents a respite from the heat and clamor of the rapidly expanding provincial town below. About 65,000 people called So Paulo home back then, when it was only a
dordle young trade center serving the nearby coffee farms. The city grew, though, as exports picked up speed in the nineteenth century.