The Orange Car of Reading: A Citrus Landmark at Front & Court
In the late 1930s, a little tin shack tucked by the Pennsylvania Railroad tracks at Front & Court Streets [...]
Did You Boscov Today? — The Slogan That Turned Shopping into a Berks County Ritual
Here in Berks County, we didn’t just shop at a department store—we “Boscov’d.” The playful question “Did you Boscov [...]
Bell Alley Soft Pretzels: the coal-fired shop that fed South Reading for 74 years (1945–2019)
Tucked behind Saints Cyril and Methodius R.C. Church along the narrow, brick-paved run of Bell Alley, a few steps [...]
Barrio Alegria & Neighbors Lead the Way at Reading Iron Playground
Barrio Alegría, through its South of Penn Initiative, has worked with residents of the South of Penn neighborhoods for [...]
Generations at the Hearth: The History of ATV Bakery in Reading
ATV’s story begins with Sicilian baker Paolo (Paul) Alberti, who emigrated from Palermo to Reading and opened Alberti’s Bakery [...]
West Reading Fall Fest
Just days before the official first day of autumn, West Reading’s Fall Fest returns for its 19th year on [...]
Reading Aviation Expo 2025: Reviving a Legacy in the Skies
Half a century ago, Reading Regional Airport was the beating heart of America’s air show scene. In 1975, it [...]
Peter Barbey: From Penn Street to New York
The Barbey–Quier–Hawley story begins with the Reading Eagle itself. In 1868, Jesse G. Hawley and William S. Ritter founded [...]
Barbey’s Bet: How a Reading Mill Became VF Corporation
At the turn of the 20th century, Reading was humming with knit-goods shops and glove makers. In October 1899, [...]
The Pennsylvania Dutch Heartland: Farming Culture and German Heritage That Shaped a Region
Across the rolling valleys of Berks, Lancaster, and Lehigh counties, the agricultural order and devotional calm of the Pennsylvania [...]
The Schlappich Farm and Locustdale: A Valley Replaced by a Highway and a Lake
Along the old alignment of Route 183 where the highway once traced the Tulpehocken Creek stood the Schlappich farm, [...]
Pyle’s Keystone Store of Blue Marsh
Pyle’s Keystone Store sat at the bend where State Hill Road tipped you down into the village of Blue [...]
Pleasant Valley Lost
Pleasant Valley—once the unassuming hinge of the lower Tulpehocken between State Hill and Mt. Pleasant—was a compact hamlet where [...]
The Quarries of Mount Penn: Witman, Kirschmann, and Reading Sand & Stone
Mount Penn’s western face was reshaped between the 1890s and mid-1920s by three distinct quarry operations whose scars created [...]
Charles A. Reed and the Last Seasons of a Muhlenberg Farm
Charles A. Reed was born in 1914 in a first-floor bedroom of a white stone-and-stucco farmhouse on the south [...]
P. F. Eisenbrown of Reading, PA—and the Twin Firemen’s Statue that Connects Reading to Manila
P. F. Eisenbrown & Sons traces its roots to the Eagle Marble & Granite Works in Reading’s 300 block [...]
The Damiano Family: A Three-Generation Crime Dynasty in Reading, PA
For much of the 20th century, Reading, Pennsylvania earned the moniker “Sin City” for its entrenched rackets in gambling, [...]
The Murder of Frank Donato: Reading’s Most Perilous Mob Entanglement
In the fall of 1962, attention in Reading’s underworld drifted away from Abe Minker and the city’s familiar vice [...]
Kings of Sin City: The Succession of Reading’s Racket Rulers
For decades, Reading, Pennsylvania, carried the notorious moniker "Sin City," an identity forged in smoky backrooms, illegal breweries, and [...]
Abe “The Baron” Minker: Reading’s Sin City Years
In the annals of American organized crime, the names that resonate are often tied to the sprawling metropolises of [...]
The Philanthropic Bootlegger: How Max Hassel Became Reading’s Most Beloved Criminal
The Gentleman Bootlegger Who Defied Every Stereotype In the violent, chaotic world of Prohibition-era organized crime, Max Hassel stood [...]