It then crosses Ayala Boulevard and Finance Street and forms the eastern edge of Rizal Park up to Kalaw Avenue.

One of Rizal Park's three entrances (the others being Maria Orosa Street and Roxas Boulevard), the Taft Avenue entrance is adjacent to the National Museum of Fine Arts (formerly the Old Legislative Building), the National Museum of Anthropology (formerly the Finance Building), and the Statue of the Sentinel of Freedom.

Engineers Manny Aquino and Robin Santos led its extension in 1911, and the avenue was renamed Manila Road.

[4] At the height of World War II, during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines, it was renamed Daitoa Avenue in 1942.

[5] The avenue's portion from Padre Burgos to Herran was also one of the right-of-way alignments of tranvía that existed until 1945.

Additionally, they contended that the move contradicted a Manila city ordinance passed in 1998 or 1999, which disallows the renaming of streets.