The Borders of Žižkov

Location: Husitská Street, grassy area by the path towards the Army Museum 

One of the backbone routes through Žižkov whose history reaches back to the Middle Ages is the street called Husitská (Hussites’) today, or Vídeňská (Viennese) before – a trunk road connecting Prague with anything past Český Brod. Westwards, it opens on to the New Town and Karlín, while it gains elevation eastwards and opens onto the Tachovské Square. The local buildings rank amongst Žižkov’s oldest, in the lowest of all locations of Prague 3 at the foot of the Vítkov Hill (262 m a.s.l. here) with a ridge of more than 1.5 km long and steep hillsides separating Žižkov from Karlín and Libeň in the north. On the opposite, south-facing side of the street, the houses climb on the inconspicuous slope of the Little Vítkov hidden underneath the residential blocks, only gaining steepness towards Vinohrady where they climb to the same elevation as Vítkov. In a landscape of this complexity, the buildings create a unique atmosphere of the “Old” or “Lower” Žižkov. The variety of the residential blocks from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries with the romantic cascades of roofs emphasises the decorativeness of historicising building fronts in contrast to the solitary presence of the scattered 1920’s modern houses. 

Husitská Street allows one to walk up to the Army Museum with the Military History Institute, and continue towards the National Memorial on top of the Vítkov Hill. There are several remarkable structures in the street as such: looking eastwards, the sight wonders towards the Tall Hrabovka Bridge, a remnant of the Vítkov track (Turnov-Kralupy-Prague rail track) spanned by a popular cycling route to Vítkov today. Close by, there is the important public building of town spa, Husitská no. 7 built by public investment of the Žižkov Town Council to the design of the Senior Town Engineer, Jindřich Motejl. The spa opened to the public in October 1903; it offered a large pool for 60 persons, two smaller pools and steam cabins, as well as bathtub options. The premises were furnished with electric lighting, filtering and ventilation. The spa, state-of-the-art and the biggest venue of its day in the greater Prague area, was awarded some prestigious accolades as e.g. Medaille d´Or at the Spa Exhibition in Belgium. 
The abundant history of Žižkov settlements, mostly lost nowadays, is illustrated by the torso of the then-Classicist vineyard house, Miranka, built in 1830 at the south-facing end of the street, and a detached single-storey building in the Northern slope (Trocnovská 1/ 2) that originally formed a part of the Baroque Hrabovka Manor.