Old postcards of Prague   Charles Quarter

400 - A view from the Vyšehrad fortification towards Karlov and the western part of the Nusle Valley

In the picture we see meandering ramparts of the New Town. The left part of the ramparts is still mediaeval, while the middle part is Baroque. At bottom left we can still see the remnants of the fortification intersected by the Prague Connecting Railway linking Smíchov with the New Town. Originally the New Town fortification continued as far as the Vyšehrad fortress. There was no gate in this section of the fortification. Access was via Vyšehrad, and the Botič stream ran under the fortification through a special latticed sluice. In the picture we can still see the Botič flowing through the as yet uncanalized bed. On the right, we can see the initial construction work for residential buildings on the still virgin ground of the western part of the Nusle Valley. On the horizon we can see from the left the Provincial Maternity Hospital, The Hospital for Prague Businessmen, the Czech and the German Asylums for Foundlings, the cupola of the Church of St Charles the Great, and the new Children’s Hospital. On the left, behind the fortification, in the area of Albertov (so called after a well-known surgeon), there are below the Provincial Maternity Hospital, the buildings of the municipal Disinfection Institute, and yet lower the two buildings of Goldschmid’s tawery and leather dye-works, constructed here in 1856. Prior to that the area was covered with vineyards and the Rackův dvůr (Racek’s Court) estate also called U slupi (At The Column). Parallel with the railroad runs Na Slupi Street (behind the break in the rampart), and continues, under a different name (the present name is Jaromírova), into Nusle.

COLOURED PHOTOTYPE. AROUND 1905

401 - A view from Větrnická Street of Benátská Street and of the Botanical Garden of the German University

On the left we can see the garden of the Pathological Institute. Above the garden is the extensive building of the Institute of Natural Sciences, No. 1594, built in 1879. One of its employees in the academic year 1911-1912 was a professor of Charles University, Albert Einstein, who taught theoretical physics here. The 1930s saw here the opening of the Museum of Mankind, established on the initiative of the famous American anthropologist of Czech origin A. Hrdlička. The one-storey residential block in the foreground (in the German section of the Garden) was built around 1898 for the gardeners and their families. Above it towers the Institute of Botany and Physiology of Plants of the German University, built in 1899. Behind it we can see the Church of St Apollinaris, and at the furthest right the old canon’s house, No. 447, which served as a part of the lunatic asylum. Previously, from 1787, it was the location of a maternity hospital which had been moved here from Soukenická Street.

PHOTOTYPE. H. SEIBT, MEISSEN, AROUND 1898

402 - The German Anatomical Institute, No. 1563, in U Nemocnice Street

It was built in Neo-Renaissance style in the years 1874-1877. A building of considerable size, with an elongated eastern wing, it reaches as far as Salmovská Street and continues through its shorter wing to the west. The building lacks the north-western corner of the rear wing envisaged in the design as, apparently, a concession had to be made to the irregular plot of the building site. Originally a two-storey structure with high roofs, it was later elevated by one storey with a flat roof. On this occasion the builders removed the part of the middle buttress with tympanum. The building now houses the First Medical Faculty of Charles University.

PHOTOTYPE. THE F. EHRLICH BOOKSHOP, AROUND 1902

403 - The tower of the Monastery Church of St Catherine, and the building of the old Czech Children’s Hospital

On the corner of Kateřinská and Viničná Streets. The hospital was established around 1890 through the conversion of the U Pecnářů building, No. 481. The building which stood on this site till 1865 was a two-storey structure housing a bakery producing wafers and altar-bread owned by M. Hájek. At that time Viničná Street (in the picture hidden by the Children’s Hospital) still did not exist, and the area was covered by the monastery garden. The Hospital, originally non-residential, later with beds, soon had an insufficient capacity and so a new children’s hospital was built in 1902 in Karlov (see picture 405). on the right we can see the charming little house No. 482 standing in a row of eleven similar structures in the south-eastern section of Kateřinská Street. The monastery with the Church of St Catherine, No. 468, was founded in 1355 by Charles IV. Following the dissolution of the monastery in 1784 the building housed first a Military Educational Institute and, after 1822, a lunatic asylum. It was in this asylum that the composer B. Smetana died in 1884.

PHOTOTYPE. K. FISCHL, AROUND 1898

404 - The Provincial Maternity Hospital, No. 441, in Apolinářská Street in Karlov

This first Prague-based maternity hospital combined with a refuge for foundlings was founded by Empress Maria Theresa. It had its first home (1762) in Soukenická Street and was primarily used by unmarried mothers. From 1776 the maternity hospital was financed from the profits from the mulberry gardens planted along the city fortification with the intent of advancing the production of silk. The building in the picture was built in the North German Gothic style on the site of the Herz Sugar Factory in the years 1867-1875 to a design by J. Hlávka. The monumental edifice with eleven wings, also known as the Red House because of the unplastered red bricks, was the largest of its kind in Europe. At the time of the opening of the maternity hospital here the scourge of such institutions was epidemics of puerperal fever. The designer apparently had this in mind when he divided the structure into a number of relatively independent wings which could be mutually isolated. On the left is the entrance to the lunatic asylum.

PHOTOTYPE. H. SEIBT, MEISSEN, AROUND 1901

405 - The pavilions of the Czech Franz Josef I Children’s Hospital in Sokolská Street in Karlov

The construction was based on a design of K. Stark and Č. Gregor, and took place in the years 1898-1902. Altogether six pavilions with 225 beds at a cost of 700 thousand guldens were built on a plot donated by the city of Prague. The builders included the City of Prague (two buildings), the Municipal Insurance Company (three buildings) and the civic association for the establishment of the maternity hospital (one building). Contributors also included private individuals such as MUDr. B. Neureutter, the first Czech university professor of children’s medicine, who bequeathed all his property to the Hospital, though he did not live to see the construction completed. The Hospital was rather modern for its time: it had central heating, a mechanized laundry, a disinfection machine, etc. The whole building complex had to be demolished in 1971 in order to enable the construction of the north-south City Arterial Road leading to the Nusle Bridge.

COLOURED PHOTOTYPE. AROUND 1903

406 - The Hospital for Prague Businessmen

Popularly dubbed the shopkeepers’ hospital, No. 458, in U Karlova Street. A view of its western front which faced the wall of the Provincial Maternity Hospital, as seen from Apolinářská Street, looking towards the south. The Hospital was built in 1861 by B. Grueber and J. Niklas in Neo-Gothic style for 40-60 patients. This occurred on the initiative of the Board of Trade and of the big businessman E. Pleschner. In the background, behind the cast-iron fence of the hospital, are the left and the right wings of the newly constructed Czech and German Asylums for Foundlings (later these became the location of the Baby Clinics of both Medical Faculties). At this point in time there was not yet any middle wing. That was to be built in the final stage of the construction, following the demolition of building No. 455 (the former old abbey) which we can see in the background on the right. The whole large complex of the Asylum for Foundlings was constructed in the years 1896-1901 to the tune of 800 thousand guldens.

PHOTOTYPE. PICTURE AROUND 1898. K. BELLMANN, 1900

407 - The Church of St Apollinaris with a row of houses in Apolinářská Street

The facades of the old houses surrounding the Church were remodelled and the oldest middle building has an elegant Baroque portal. In the background on the left, beyond building No. 445, we can see the tip of building 446 (according to the map) approachable by a narrow access road running around the corner structure No. 444 (the only extant building of those on the picture). The smallest structure is the ill-famed Jedová chýše (The Poisonous Shanty) pub, according to the map No. 448. However, all literature cites No. 446 as the building, a fact that might be explained by the possible link of this house with the tall building in the background. (But it also may be a cartographic error.) On the right, on the corner of Viničná Street, we can see a part of building No. 440. The Church of St Apollinaris, built some time after 1362, stands on a little hill called Větrov (Windy). One of the buildings in the vicinity was owned by king Wenceslas IV. It was perhaps because of its position or its distance from the more populated areas that the church was one of very few buildings spared from the destruction caused by many wars. Surprisingly, even the Prussian military which set up its workshop here for the production of ammunition in 1757, caused no substantial harm to the church.

COLOURED PHOTOTYPE. BROTHERS MÜHLSTEIN, OFFENBACH AM MAIN, AROUND 1898

408 - The Jedová chýše (The Poisonous Shanty) pub in Apolinářská Street, No. 446

Allegedly the oldest Prague pub, originally called Na Vinici (On the Vinyard). It was a popular dancing hangout as early as the 13th century and it became the subject of innumerable legends. Among other things the pub is said to have been once visited by king Wenceslas IV and his executioner. Allegedly the King recognized the two noblemen who had almost poisoned him during his captivity in Vienna, which was a real-life event (he is known to have suffered from permanent thirst for the rest of his life). He therefore ordered his executioner to cast poison into the noblemen’s wine while they were dancing. And it is allegedly from then that the pub received its colourful name. From the mid-19th century the pub was a favourite dancing-dive of the Prague German Bohemians and of the Prague-based German Burschenschaften (nationalistic student organizations). It was equally popular among prostitutes and later nurses from the nearby hospitals and institutions. The attic rooms of the pub are said to have witnessed regular orgies. The saloon had an extremely low and incredibly smoke-stained roof. In 1904 the pub was used by the German Burschen to hide M. Dreyfus who was sought by the Austrian police in connection with the affair of his brother, who had been accused in France of spying for Germany. When Czech students and workers learned about this, they attacked the Burschen, with whom they had some other unsettled accounts, beat them up and ransacked the pub. In the 1920s the pub was still a favourite meeting place for Prague criminals. The year 1935 saw the demolition of the pub and the adjacent building No. 445. The pub was replaced by a residential building.

PHOTOGRAPHIC POSTCARD. PICTURE AROUND 1910. PROBABLY Z. REACH, 1920s

409 - New buildings on the corner of Na Bojišti and U Karlova Streets

Na Bojišti (On The Battlefield) was the long-established name for the broad environment because of the bloody battle in 1179 between the Přemyslids Bedřich and Soběslav. When the picture was taken, the name Na Bojišti was only used for the street, as well as for the corner building with its restaurant, new No. 1950. It is obvious that the design of the building must have reckoned with the establishment of a restaurant on the ground floor. This no doubt attests to the entrepreneurial spirit of the owner who must have correctly expected that the number of inhabitants in the neighbourhood, and therefore the number of patrons of the restaurants, would constantly increase. The whole block of buildings was built on a part of a large garden, No. 463, around the year 1895. It was one of the first dwelling complexes which then began to mushroom in this previously sparsely populated area of Karlov, almost completely covered by gardens and/or medical and social institutions.

COLOURED PHOTOTYPE. F. J. JEDLIČKA, 1903

410 - Fügnerovo Square in Karlov

Between Sokolská Street (on the left) and Táborská Street (on the right). It arose only in the last decade of the 19th century, following the demolition of the ramparts which ran here along the line of Táborská Street. Originally the city-planners considered the establishment of a market for this part of the New Town in this area, but eventually opted for creating a park in the Square. The Square was named after the first head and founder of the Sokol movement (a patriotic Czech physical culture organization) J. Fügner (1822-1865). In the front of the middle building we can see two statues representing work, and a bust of J. Fügner.

PHOTOTYPE. K. BELLMANN, 1902

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