Stepped gables then present were removed and replaced by the evenly spaced functionalist silhouettes — the nine floors of which resulted in comparisons with cities in America and the epithet "Manhattan of Stockholm".
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A first proposal for a boulevard on the location in 1863–64, intended to embellish the area with a westbound entrance to the city similar to Strandvägen, the simultaneously proposed eastbound boulevard which, in contrast to the former, was actually built and became the grandiose front of the eastern district Östermalm.
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By that time, new garden cities in the suburbs had resulted in an increasing need for new western approach into the city.