Category: Community
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Harry Truman Visits Reading On This Day 1948
Read more: Harry Truman Visits Reading On This Day 1948On October 7th, 1948 President Harry S. Truman made a campaign stop in Reading where he addressed a crowd of roughly 20,000 on Penn Square at 10:45am. He spoke from a platform which was erected on the southeast corner of 5th & Penn. The city was already decorated in celebration of Reading’s Bicentennial anniversary, and…
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Pagoda Update 9/10
Read more: Pagoda Update 9/10If you follow along on facebook you are probably aware that back in January I joined the board of the Foundation for the Reading Pagoda. The iconic structure has been closed to the public since COVID related closures back in 2020. A building and grounds assessment was conducted in 2023 which determined the building itself…
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Shillington Hotel & Bank
Read more: Shillington Hotel & BankThis was originally posted on July 29th, 2024 to Berks Nostalgia’s facebook page, I have since added some more info and am reposting it here. Everyone likes to dump on Reading for its blighted properties (and it’s generally warranted) but lets put Shillington in the spotlight and examine the building on the southwest corner of…
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North 3rd Street Building Collapse
Read more: North 3rd Street Building CollapseOn the evening of Thursday August 22nd, 2024 it was reported by Berks Weekly that a building had collapsed on North 3rd street and that children may have been inside. Firefighters used thermal drone imaging to confirm that no one was buried in the rubble and that the children that had been seen playing inside…
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The Morgantown Hotel – a study in Preservation vs. Capitalism
Read more: The Morgantown Hotel – a study in Preservation vs. CapitalismOn May 7th I posted a “Then & Now” of the Morgantown Hotel to my facebook page. Unbeknownst to me it seems that even though its been 16 years since the Morgantown Hotel was razed to make way for a Rite Aid, the feelings of negativity that surrounded losing an integral piece of the town’s…
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Lamm / Speicher Farm
Read more: Lamm / Speicher FarmThis is another installment in the “Before Blue Marsh” series, where I explore the remains of various properties that were razed in the 1970s to make way for the Blue Marsh Lake Project. See more here. My ongoing Blue Marsh mapping project led me to the remains of the Speicher farm which sat off of…
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Skinner Farm – Lamb’s Pasture
Read more: Skinner Farm – Lamb’s PastureThis is another installment in the “Before Blue Marsh” series, where I explore the remains of various properties that were razed in the 1970s to make way for the Blue Marsh Lake Project. See more here. At the beginning of “Skinner’s Loop” trail which leads to Fox Lake, you will find the remains of the Skinner…
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Lamm’s Mill & Farm
Read more: Lamm’s Mill & FarmThis is another installment in the “Before Blue Marsh” series, where I explore the remains of various properties that were razed in the 1970s to make way for the Blue Marsh Lake Project. See more here. Lamm’s Mill was a three and a half story limestone masonry grist and saw mill which was built in 1844…
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The Shamrock Serenade – Reading’s St. Patrick’s Day Tradition
Read more: The Shamrock Serenade – Reading’s St. Patrick’s Day TraditionIt is Reading’s Saint Patrick’s Day tradition that dates back to a pact made between two men, Tom Hannahoe and Alvah Schaeffer, in 1893 at an Irish bar called The Stars and Stripes Saloon on South 11th Street. Nearly 130 years later this midnight tradition continues at Hannahoe’s grave in St. Peter the Apostle Cemetery,…
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The Berks Bingo Ban of 1938
Read more: The Berks Bingo Ban of 1938The game Bingo dates back to sixteenth century Italy, but only reached North America in 1929. By the mid-30s it had taken the country, particularly women, by storm. In the year 1936 the the word “bingo” appears more frequently in the Reading Times than all 79 years worth of editions published before it. Everyone was…
