A document from 1456 delineating the parish boundaries of St. Catherine's and St. Bartholomew's lists, after the Bartholomaigasse, also the "media platea Kalkgasse appellata" (middle street called Lime Lane). This can only refer to the present-day Paradiesgasse, whose continuation across the Kashubian Market still preserves the name Kalkgasse to this day.

The name Kalkgasse (Lime Lane) derives from a lime kiln located roughly in the area between the later Jakobstor (St. James's Gate) and the Bastion Heiliger Leichnam (Holy Corpse Bastion), which the Teutonic Order granted to the citizens of the Old Town in 1399. The lane provided the most direct access to this kiln from the interior of the city.

The current name Paradiesgasse (Paradise Lane) appears in land registers from 1581. The historian Loschin states it derived from a building of that name, though no evidence for this claim has been found. The name occurs in other cities as well, such as Breslau (Wroclaw); in Hamburg too, a decidedly unparadisiacal passage is called "Paradieshof." It appears to be - much like the Rosen- (Rose), Lawendel- (Lavender), and Liliengassen (Lily Lanes) - an ironic name for dirty, foul-smelling streets.

Today's ulica Rajska is almost entirely undeveloped on the eastern side, while new buildings on the western side stand where the former backyards once were. The street was merged with the former Kalkgasse. The name, fittingly, still translates as Paradise Lane.

History