The Crystal Palace Hot Wiener Shop was a downtown Reading dining landmark for 82 years. Frank Pestlikes, a native of Rhodes, Greece, started the business at 744 Penn Street in a part of what had once been the Crystal Palace Hotel and Market [...]
Few people know that a Boy Scout Camp once existed on Mount Penn. Camp Howard was a 26-acre campsite located on List Road on the top of Mount Penn in the City of Reading. Records indicate that Scouts began using the city-owned land [...]
Decades ago, Reading was a mighty manufacturing town where the Reading Railroad — once the world's largest company, now a spot on the Monopoly board — built a 19th-century transportation empire, and factories produced everything from hats to hardware. At one time, the [...]
Camping has always been essential to Scouting, and was embraced by even the earliest Boy Scouts of Berks and Schuylkill counties, who flocked to summer Scout camps even before Councils had formed to support their fledgling troops. Throughout the years many camps have [...]
The Fifth and Spring school house was an 8-room building erected in 1900. The school was adjacent to Church and Spring school, a 4-room building erected in 1894. Below: Fifth and Spring school located on the northeast corner of Fifth and Spring Streets, [...]
In the 1870s, three young men, salesmen for Brown, Thomson and McWhirter, at Hartford, Conn., had a dream. They dreamed the dream of every ambitious youth that of owning a business establishment of which they might be proud of. They had only a [...]
The Park School was formerly located at the intersection of Perkiomen Avenue with 12th and Franklin Streets. The building was constructed in 1899 and cost about $25,000. The school was built on the site of the Bechtel House which was razed in 1898. [...]
The Embassy theatre was constructed on the properties owned by Ad. and Samuel Kutz and E. I. Kaufmann, 739-749 Penn Street, which at one time was the site of the Berks County House and the Bubp grocery store. Before the buildings were razed [...]
Drive-in theaters were hugely popular after World War II and, on special summer occasions featured all-night shows. Among its advantages was the fact that older adults with children could take care of their infant while watching a movie, while youth found drive-ins ideal [...]
Ben Zerr opened the Olivet Theatre at 647 Schuylkill Ave., near Oley, on Thanksgiving Day 1911. The initial attraction was “The Landing of Columbus.” In 1913, this “motion-picture house” was renamed the Schuylkill Avenue Theatre. Below: Schuylkill Avenue Theatre, 647 Schuylkill Ave. [...]
