Biographical Sketch of Karel Hujer
Karel Hujer was born on September 18, 1902, in Zelezny Brod, Czechoslovakia, to a horticultural family that gave him a comfortable living and an excellent education. He was a youngster during the apparition of Halley's Comet and the other lesser known but spectacular Great Comet of 1910. Fascinated by astronomy from a young age, Karel prepared for a future in the field by studying mathematics and physics, ultimately obtaining his doctorate in natural sciences at Prague's ancient Charles University. Along this path, he also studied at University College, London and the Yerkes Observatory of the University of Chicago. His academic career included positions at several colleges before finally settling in at the University of Chattanooga, later the University of Tennesse at Chattanooga, in 1946. He retired from UYC in 1973 as Guerry Professor Emeritus of Astronomy
Karel's remarkable life story is more completely explored in a separate onlline memorial tribute to him. Here we focus on the extensive collection of photographic imagery he accumulated over the various extensive trips he took in support of his academic and personal spiritual endeavors.
Throughout his life, travel was a critically important component of Karel's academic and personal spiritual endeavoers.
Background to this Project
Dr. Ralph L. Buice, Jr., like me, was a devotee of the Clarence T. Jones Observatory as well as of the Hujers from a young age. Ralph and I inhereted most of Karel's professional materials when he passed away. Harriet gave me his astronomy books and travel journals. Ralph received all his other books and his very large collection of photographs that includes prints, lantern slides, 35-mm slides, and negatives of a variety of formats. Sadly, Ralph passed away suddenly on 24 Feb 2010. (Insert photo of Ralph and the Hujers), and his brother Rick subsequently gave me the collected books and photographic materials. It has taken me several years as well as my own retirement from a career in astronomy to digest with wonderful cache of material. The richness of the photography early on caught my attention, creating the necessity of somehow sharing many wonderful images that Karel recorded all over the world, especially those taken during the years leading up to and during the Great Depression.
More ...
This present project results from a collaboration with Tor N.G. Westin, my brother-in-law and fellow astronomer. Tor expertly scanned some 3400 35-mm negatives at 3200 ppi, carefully labeling them with filenames consistent with Karel's own scrupulous notation of his slides and negatives. I then made a first pass through them to select what I thought are the most interesting and attempted to collate them in terms of place and time by inspecting Karel's journals. For many of the images, some Internet time spent following clues (names of streets, hotels, shops, etc.) led to more specific descriptions included in the captions. Finally, Tor and I sat down to pick the final collection of images presented here.
The photographs herein have been rescaled to 1200x760 pixels at 100 ppi for better viewing on computer screens. There has also be some adjustment to contrast and clean up of dust and scratches made using Photoshop Elements 10 to these versions of the original untouched scans.
All of these images are copyrighted by H.A. McAlister and are subject to all copyright restrictions.
The Photographs
Boston and New York (Click on each image to see a larger version).
 |
 |
 |
 |
Boston / February 1938 — Boston's Old State House. Note the lion and unicorn statues at the top of the structure. Representing the United Kingdom, of which Massachusetts was a part at the building's construction, they respectively stand for England and Scotland. The statues were removed for renovation in 2014. During that process, a time capsule from 1901 was found in the lion's head, and it was replaced by successor when reinstalled in 2014.
Boston / February 1938 — Traffic on Tremont Street alongside Boston Common after passing by the 1810 Park Street Congregational Church whose steeple was once the tallest building in America.
Boston / February 1938 — Green Street MBTA station at Jamaica Plain.
Boston to NYC / February 1938 — Off to NYC on a Greyhound coach manufactred in 1937 by the Yellow Coach Manufacturing Company.
 |
 |
 |
 |
Boston to NYC / February 1938 — Driver welcoming passengers.
Boston to NYC / February 1938 — Greyhound post house en route Boston to New York.
NYC / February 1938 — Eye contact on the subway.
NYC / February 1938 — Lower Manhattan skyline with the 67-storey Cities Service Building - now a luxury rental property. Prior to construction of the World Trade Center, it was the tallest building in Lower Manhattan. The building was only seven years old in this photograph and third in stature to the Empire State and Chrysler buildings at that time.
 |
 |
 |
 |
NYC / February 1938 — Fifty-Eighth Street and it RKO Theater. The Life of Emile Zola won the Oscar that year.
NYC / February 1938 — Taxi line on Broadway at Wall St with Trinity Episcopal Church on the left and the Woolworth Building in the distance.
NYC / February 1938 — Mounted policeman at Bowery Savings Bank.
NYC / February 1938 — Ever-watchful cops.
 |
 |
 |
 |
Los Angeles / Early March 1938 — Boarding the bus to LA after a stop in the desert.
Los Angeles / Early March 1938 — The Mountain View Inn was one of Hollywood's great old hotels. Located at 5956 Hollywood Blvd, the site is now a Toyota dealership with a Salvation Army store across the street.
Los Angeles / Early March 1938 — Travel trailer with wary dog and plants.
Los Angeles / Early March 1938 — Man having his shoes shined.
 |
 |
 |
Los Angeles / Early March 1938 — In late winter 1938, Southern California received more than 4 inches of rain in just three days. This resulted in a 50-year flood that killed more than a hundred people. Karel visited Los Angeles while the flood waters were still receeding. This image shows water flowing in the streets still awash with mud and debris. In examining the image, one sees Griffith Observatory atop the hill above the right side of the filling station. This perspective indicates the action here was in the vicinity of US 101 and Franklin Avenue.
Los Angeles / Early March 1938 — Across from Pershing Square and near the corner of Olive and Fifth in Los Angeles, a news vendor displays an issue full of flood photos in an extra edition. The Biltmore hotel, the largest in the US west of Chicago when it opened in 1923, is down West Fifth Street from this crowded scene.
Los Angeles / Early March 1938 — A palm-lined avenue in LA.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|