What's in a Prague street name

Originally published on Twitter on 16 January 2023.

U Havlíčkových sadů was built in 1908.

From 1940 to 1945, the street was Grébovky. Which leads us to the fact that the park is known as both Havlíčkovy sady and Grébovka (with Gröbovka also being an option).

It will surprise precisely nobody that area where the park is now used to consist of vineyards.

During the 1860s, Moritz Gröbe, a German businessman who worked in Bohemia, bought the land and decided to have a villa built.

The first villa was knocked down and replaced by another one, which we know as Gröbova vila or Grébovka: https://villagrebovka.cz/

In 1905, the villa and surrounding land were sold by Gröbe’s heirs to the Municipality of Vinohrady, who renamed the park Havlíčkovy sady, after Karel Havlíček Borovský: https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2022/12/26/prague-3-day-122-havlickovo-namesti/

The park, and especially the villa, were quite badly damaged by Allied bombing in WW2.

Over the decades, the area fell into disrepair, and it wasn’t until 2013 that reconstruction was completed: https://ct24.ceskatelevize.cz/clanek/regiony/grebovka-je-po-dlouhych-letech-kompletne-opravena-316397

It’s a lovely place to go and get a glass of wine, not least because it has its own vineyard, which produces 4,000 litres of the stuff each year, and organises a wine festival every September.

The park also includes a bench in memory of singer Petr Muk, who died far too young in 2010: https://en.mapy.cz/zakladni?source=base&id=2236514&gallery=1&x=14.4437686&y=50.0696276&z=17