Ke Hlásce was named in the 1930s.


Type ‘hláska’ into most translation tools, and they’ll start telling you about a phone. However, they’re not talking about a telephone – in this sense, a ‘phone’ is any distinct speech sound. As in phonetics, phonemes, homophones, and so on.
However, a ‘hláska’ is also a watchtower, usually found as part of the fortifications of a medieval town. It can also be used to describe a traffic control station on a railway line, or, when called an ‘SOS hláska’, it’s an emergency (public) telephone).
Here’s a picture I took from a, erm, Great watchtower in February of this year.

There’s a house at the top of this street (back in Podolí, not Beijing) that overlooks the surrounding valley – hence the area once being known as Hláska, and this street leading to the watchtower (Ke Hlásce).
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