Richards' toy corner, located on the northeast corner of Front and Buttonwood, was probably the largest store devoted to toys ,year round, in the city. No "youngster" of whatever age, passing by 101 Buttonwood Street, could resist the enormous temptation to go inside [...]
Located at the Southwest corner of 8th and Penn Streets in Reading, PA is a building patterned architecturally after Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia, PA. The building, erected in 1929 by the Penn National Bank and Trust Co. on the site of its former [...]
The Strand Theatre was located at the Northeast corner of at 9th and Spring Streets in Reading. The city's largest neighborhood theater was constructed by C.H. Schlegel and Son and opened on February 21, 1920. As the Reading Eagle ad of that day [...]
In the 1930s Reading, Pennsylvania, was a medium-sized city of 111,000 inhabitants. As the seat of Berks County, Reading was the social, political, and economic focus for the predominantly agricultural communities that surrounded it. It was also a faultless embodiment of Main Street, [...]
Film of City Park, Penn's Common, 1929 showing old bandstand and prison. Water-Works, Prison, and Fairgrounds Reading City Park at the head of Penn Street was set apart as early as 1749 by John and Richard Penn as public commons that [...]
Michael Brecht, (1732-1814), the third son of an emigrant, came to Reading in January 1752, the year Berks County was established, and built a simple dwelling on lot No. 391 as stipulated in the land patent of July 16, 1752. The lot, 60 [...]
Around 1939 the white facade Post Office at the Southeast corner of 5th and Washington Streets was constructed. The present post office replaced another post office located at the same corner. Erected in 1889, the turreted brick and limestone edifice was constructed [...]
Two episodes of serious flooding occurred in southeastern Pennsylvania in the summer of 1850. A tropical storm moving north from Virginia soaked the region overnight on July 18-19, causing flash floods that killed at least twenty along the Schuylkill River. Great destruction to [...]
Long before the construction of the Berks County prison in Bern Township a battle raged over what to do with the old jail located in City Park. Below: Berks County Prison (1847-1936). A museum, convention hall, and memorial were the most [...]
Where the Reading, Perkiomen and Philadelphia Turnpike (now Perkiomen Avenue) intersects Penn Street, there once stood a wall with a Stone Heart in the south face of the stone wall. The wall was about forty feet east of North Eleventh Street. Below: [...]
