Pity poor King Herod. Despite having been responsible for the most ambitious urban development plan in the history of ancient Jerusalem, an attempt to garner the support of the ultra-religious Jews dominating the political scene in Judea who scorned him for his descent from non-Jewish Idumaeans failed. History has not been kind enough to apply his name to the most impressive of his works, which include the final iteration of the Second Temple.
In fact, about the only major landmark in Jerusalem itself that does bear Herod's name is a modest gate in the Old City wall leading into the Muslim Quarter, a gate built about 1,600 years after the king's reign. Of the Muslim Quarter gates, Herod's Gate lacks the architectural impressiveness of the nearby Damascus Gate and the convenient access to major religious sites of the Lions' Gate, but visitors who want to experience the quiet, residential side of the Muslim Quarter may find Herod's Gate to be the easiest, least trafficked, and least aggressively mercantile entrance.
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