Category: Towns
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Stichter Hardware Company – 505 Penn Street
Read more: Stichter Hardware Company – 505 Penn StreetStichter Hardware was a well-known name amongst Reading merchants for over a century and a half. To get the full picture of the history of this specific site, we need to go back to the Berks County’s colonial period. The lot where this building sits was once owned by Conrad Weiser, who erected the first…
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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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What Happened to Reading, Pennsylvania?
Read more: What Happened to Reading, Pennsylvania?Without fail every time I post an old photo of Penn Street there are multiple comments asking, “what happened to Reading?” (and this is putting it nicely). Generally these comments are rhetorical and negative in nature, but sometimes I believe folks are genuine in wanting to know how we went from thriving industrial city of…
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The Ghosts of Angelica Dam & Lake
Read more: The Ghosts of Angelica Dam & LakeThe origins of Angelica Lake can be traced to the incorporation of the Angelica Water Company, which was founded in 1875. At that time Reading was beginning to feel the strain of unprecedented growth as it became an industrial powerhouse. Unsurprisingly many businesses were formed to accommodate the need for development. The Reading Land and…
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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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D. S. & W. Hosiery Mill / The Great Factory Store
Read more: D. S. & W. Hosiery Mill / The Great Factory StoreD. S. & W. Hosiery Company filed a charter of incorporation in June of 1917. The three men who founded it – Daniel J. Driscoll, William W. Staudt, and George S. Weinerth, had extensive experience in the textile industry by the time they partnered together. In the charter the shares of the company were split;…
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Astor Theatre – 732 Penn Street, Reading
Read more: Astor Theatre – 732 Penn Street, ReadingThe Astor Theatre was constructed at the cost of half a million dollars on the south side of the 700 block of Penn Street. It was built on the site of the Arcadia Theatre, which was Reading’s oldest theatre, and opened on October 3rd, 1928. The Astor’s stunning art deco interior finishes are emblematic of…
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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,…