In 1891, the Keystone Market House at 734 Penn Street was transformed into the Eden Musee (a curio hall and museum) and the Bijou Theatre. The property underwent various name changes over the next twenty-five years, including Gilder’s Auditorium, Becker’s Lyceum, the “New [...]
The Penn Square Pedestrian Mall was originally a component of a much larger urban renewal plan. Sasaki Associates' Downtown East Urban Renewal Plan of 1971 proposed an enclosed shopping mall in downtown Reading to compete with shopping malls being built in the suburbs. [...]
The buildings at the southeast corner of 3rd and Penn Streets, presented the above appearance, when, in 1825, Daniel Graeff moved his family and dry goods and grocery store into the corner building (No.1). His previous location was on the south side of [...]
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 [...]
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, [...]
One of the first business places in Reading was the store of Conrad Weiser at a little crossroads we now know as Fifth and Penn streets in Reading. Weiser moved to the Tulpehocken area in Pennsylvania in 1729, erecting a house upon a [...]
Long before the days of big-box stores like Walmart and Target, five-and-dime stores had everything you needed. You could buy clothes, grab some treats, and eat lunch for under $20. Kresge's, W. T. Grants, Woolwoth's, and McCrory's, all once were a part of [...]
The Reading Fire Department was officially organized on March 17, 1773, with the founding of the Rainbow Volunteer Fire Company. The Keystone Hook and Ladder Company No. 1, was organized on December 12, 1855. The company was known by various other names until February [...]
Milton Snavely Hershey (September 13, 1857 – October 13, 1945) was an American chocolatier, businessman, and philanthropist. At the age of 14, Hershey, who'd dropped out of school the year before, expressed an interest in candy making and began apprenticing with a master [...]
The Penn Square traffic circle has a long and troubled history. It was originally installed in May 1934 by Police Commissioner John S. Giles during the administration of Mayor Heber Ermentrout. Its purpose was to slow down converging traffic. Sometimes the traffic was [...]
