Borgergade originates in the 1649 plan for New Copenhagen, the large area which was included in the fortified city when the old East Rampart along present day Gothersgade was decommissioned and a new one was built in a more northerly direction.

The most affluent families settled along Bredgade and Ny Kongensgade while the area around Borgergade and Adelgade catered to a more modest clientele, typically craftsmen and shop-keepers.

The neighbourhood escaped both the Great Fires of 1728 and 1795, and was also left largely unharmed by the British bombardment of the city during the Battle of Copenhagen in 1807.

On 26 January 1865, the first public bath house opened in the street after a donation from Carl Joachim Hambro, a banker residing in London,[3] but apart from that sanitation facilities were sparse.

[4] When the Fortifications were decommissioned in the middle of the century, many of the owners moved on to the new residential districts which had sprung up, such as Nørrebro and Vesterbro, and the area around Borgergade developed into one of the worst and most crowded slums in the city with a notorious reputation for poverty, vice and crime.

Instigated by Christian Axel Jensen, director of Museum of Copenhagen, the Mint Master's House was dismantled, registered and stored in a shed at Vestre Cemetery.

Both the more famous yellow houses and the younger so-called Grey (or New) Rows, designed by Olaf Schmidth and built between 1886 and 1893, are to be found along the street.