Beer, books and radio gramophones: The history of U Zeleného stromu, home of Bokovka
U Zeleného stromu (The Green Tree) connects two originally separate buildings that stood between Dlouhá and Haštalská Street during the Hussite storms. For a long time they were called after their current owners, until they acquired a common architectural coat and name in the 17th century: originally U Zlatého stromu (The Golden Tree), since the end of the monarchy more often U Zeleného stromu. Supposedly, Rudolf II gave the house to one of his faithful mistresses, but this is honestly just a rumour.
For centuries the building was one of the popular freight houses brewing its own beer. Among the most important local brewers was Ferdinand Vendulák from an interesting Prague family who for centuries took care of the brewery, the inn and one of the first Prague's chantries, U Medvídků, and was behind the establishment of the once famous brewery in Holešovice, as well as the first employment office. However, we will leave the story of the Green Tree as a brewery and inn for a separate trip.
In the 1880s, the house was bought from the Vendulák family the Jewish landowner David Pasch. It was he who who replaced the declining brewing business with a trade which became typical of the rugged townhouse for decades. And because the Jewish community always stuck together, almost all the local merchants were also united by their religion. Pasch's daughters, Růžena and Otilie, sold the house in 1924 to the Israelite Confraternity and The Jewish community still owns it today.
After the brewery was closed down, the only thing that partly resembled the original business was the tavern, which can still be found in an elongated ground-floor room. Although the current designation "Sport bar Pohoda" seems somewhat undignified for the brewery's centuries-old inn, the Golden Tree. But let's leave its story - with a short digression to the café operation - for another day.
Skins for cars, planes and book bindings
One of the first trades to find a home in the late 19th century, was the leather trade. This, however, was not to the neighbours' taste or smell. 'A new warehouse of raw hides was opened in the house at the Golden Tree without official permission and without prior examination by the health commission,' we read in the National Gazette in 1888.
"Although it is necessary that as much as possible should be done to make the business in this part of the city flourish, no one can wish, for health reasons, that in such a busy street between numerously populated houses a factory should be set up, such as has not been suffered in Prague for a long time."
However, leather goods did eventually find their tradition in the house. Especially during the First Republic, the company of the Arend brothers took care of it. Before the war, the elder Oskar had already started this business in Dušní Street, then he moved to the ground floor premises at U Zeleného stromu and with the help of his younger brother Egon they offered everything from horse harnesses and saddles to materials for making bags and leather for fashion accessories.
The brothers covered all industries, supplying leather materials to the railways, the army, and as machines gradually replaced horse power, they also focused on the automobile or the burgeoning aviation industry. Their flourishing trade was only destroyed by the monstrous Nazi demagoguery. The property was arized (during the war the company operated under the name Aspra), and Oskar and his wife Irma perished in the concentration camps Mauthausen and Auschwitz, the younger Egon miraculously survived the racial cleansing and after the war emigrated to the United States.
One of the industries for which the Arend brothers also sold materials was leather bookbinding. In 1927-1930, U Zeleného stromu provided a base for this industry as well, when the the Friend of the Book publishing house moved in. It was founded by Emil Reis, a native of Žižkov according to the publisher's dictionary, although according to the autobiography of the poet Otokar Štorch Marien, he was a "Russian emigrant", whom he ironically described as a "cultural benefactor".
Reis himself presented his publishing house as a "purely Czech enterprise", although the capital was probably also based on a silent foreign partner, allegedly from Latvia. In any case, the enterprising middle-aged man wasn't afraid to take risks and use perhaps even somewhat peculiar methods. The main purpose of the enterprise was to sell books "almost for free", in reality for seven crowns, which according to the publisher was the price of postage, packing and advertising. The buyer undertook to subscribe regularly to books of both domestic and foreign production (it has to be said, mostly by established famous names).
The publishing house also launched several large projects, such as the publication of the Encyclopaedia of Czechoslovak Youth as a sequel or a competition to publish the original work on the tenth anniversary of the Republic. At that time, it enticed several prestigious names from among literary scholars and university professors to cooperate with it. However, after three years, Emil Reis ended up in a million-dollar bankruptcy and Friend of the People was bought by Plamja, a Prague publishing house of Russian emigrants. Still, in three years of operation, Reis published some 135 book titles.
School for ladies' hairdressing
For many years the Green Tree also had a businessman Jakub Pollak who moved here in 1893 and sold decorative cardboard goods of all kinds. Especially jewellery boxes, luxury wrappers for sweets, cake boxes, Christmas or Easter goodies, not only paper, but also silk or plush.
There were all kinds of boxes for fashion accessories as well as decorative goods made of paper. Jakub's younger son Ferdinand eventually took over the trade, while the elder Josef became a lawyer and also the managing director of the Association of Czech Academic Jews.
In contrast to the fragile paper goods, the firm of Maximilian Schack, an iron merchant, operated at the same time at U Zeleného stromu. Sheets, pipes, bolts, nuts and iron and steel of all kinds were available in any quantity. Mr. Schack often contributed financially and materially to charitable causes. Among other things, he donated three valuable historic lock mechanisms to the Museum of the City of Prague. He also repeatedly sent money to the Matica školy, an association caring for Czech schools, mostly in the poor borderlands.
One school was established directly at the Green Tree in 1887. "In trade circles one can still hear complaints about the need to set up vocational schools in order to raise a proper workforce," we read in Narodni listy about the establishment of the enterprise, which was called "Prague Ladies' Hairdressing School".
It was run by a board of barbers and hairdressers, and the promotional article quoted above endearingly justified its focus on ladies: "In order that the barber may not be dependent solely on his male customers, he is often disappointed in his hope of frequent earnings by the fact that, since the barber has by frequent shaving and other aids added much to the beard - this ungrateful man lets his beard grow..."
The school's project attracted many experts (such as make-up master Edvard Procházka of the National Theatre) and operated successfully in the house for many years. The hairdressers complained of perhaps one thing: "There seems to be a constant shortage of girls (so-called models) on whom the pupils learn; we remind you that girls who have only a little hair can be hired to do their hair there on Mondays and Thursdays from six o'clock in the evening for a small fee..."
Radiographs...and condoms?
Do you remember our grandmothers' ancient radio receivers combined with gramophones? They got those at the Green Tree, too. The Sigma radio company was brought here in the mid-1930s by its owner, Baltazar von Szathmáry. Golden Sigma, Sigma Triumph, Super Sigma and other first-class types of radios were available here. The pride of the company was the Sigmafon radiograms with a Swiss machine in an elegant wooden case made of Caucasian walnut. It would replace a parlour orchestra and was also ideal for concerts as well as military schools, a contemporary advertisement proclaimed.
Perhaps more publicly known was the owner's brother, Ladislav Szathmáry, who served in the Foreign Ministry. At the beginning of the war, the he joined the anti-Nazi resistance and became chargé d'affaires to the Norwegian government-in-exile. Perhaps this is why the Communists tried unsuccessfully to get Balthazar to leave the country after the war, accusing him of collaboration. They failed to do so, but they nationalised his business.
By the way, the house also has a plaque commemorating the "rubber king" Gustav Schwarzwald, founder of the famous Primeros condom company. However, in researching this text, it turned out that his plaque was placed here by mistake. The pioneer and holder of several patents for the production of specific protective devices - who unfortunately also fell victim to the fanatical Nazi ideology - was actually based in the nearby house No. 733.
In any case, it must have been very lively in the courtyard of the "green and gold" tree, where one used to go to drink on the ancient wooden pavement to the local tavern, another was ordering iron, another went to get a radiotelephone or leather for a horse saddle. And another bought an elegant cupcake box while he waited in the café for his lady at the local school to get her hair cut.
Or, one could just stand for a while in the shade of the sprawling tree that still grew in the middle of the courtyard during the First Republic. After the war, small trades revived in the house, but after February 1948 they inevitably disappeared; during the era of totalitarianism it was the seat of the Long Distance Communications Administration or the Department of Scientific Communism of the Charles University. But somehow it didn't have the right smell anymore.
