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Bethel AME Church (Reading, Pennsylvania)

19th-century Episcopal church buildingsAfrican-American churchesAfrican-American history of PennsylvaniaAfrican-American museums in PennsylvaniaAfrican Methodist Episcopal churches in Pennsylvania
Buildings and structures in Reading, PennsylvaniaChurches completed in 1837Churches in Berks County, PennsylvaniaChurches on the National Register of Historic Places in PennsylvaniaChurches on the Underground RailroadMuseums in Reading, PennsylvaniaNational Register of Historic Places in Reading, PennsylvaniaUnderground Railroad in Pennsylvania
Bethel AME REading
Bethel AME REading

Bethel AME Church, now known as the Central Pennsylvania African American Museum, is a historic African Methodist Episcopal church at 119 North 10th Street in Reading, Berks County, Pennsylvania. It was originally built in 1837, and is a 2½-storey brick and stucco building with a gable roof. It was rebuilt about 1867–1869, and remodeled in 1889. It features a three-storey brick tower with a pyramidal roof topped by a finial. The church is known to have housed fugitive slaves and the congregation was active in the Underground Railroad. The church is now home to a museum dedicated to the history of African Americans in Central Pennsylvania. The only AME church in Berks County to have been built using private resources from its congregation, Bethel AME was founded by George Dillen, Samuel Murray, Isaac Parker, and Jacob Ross. Of those four, Murray was the one most involved with the building's construction. Closely aligned with Philadelphia's Mother Bethel AME Church, "Men preached from the pulpits but the ladies were responsible for organizing benevolent societies and mission circles, teaching classes in the large Sunday Schools attached to both congregations, as well as singing in the choir and providing a musical accompaniment for the Sunday services," according to historian Barbara Goda.Reading's Bethel AME Church was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Bethel AME Church (Reading, Pennsylvania) (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Bethel AME Church (Reading, Pennsylvania)
North 10th Street, Reading

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Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 40.3375 ° E -75.918055555556 °
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Address

Reading Civic Theatre

North 10th Street 126
19601 Reading
Pennsylvania, United States
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call+16103757482

Website
readingcivic.org

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Bethel AME REading
Bethel AME REading
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Santander Arena
Santander Arena

The Santander Arena (formerly known as the Sovereign Center) is a 7,160-seat multi-purpose arena, in Reading, Pennsylvania. It was built in 2001. The arena sits on the former site of the Astor Theater; one of several grand movie and theater palaces built in Reading in the early 20th century. Closed in 1975, the theater sat vacant for over two decades. In 1998, the Astor was demolished to make room for the Santander Arena. Early in construction, steps were taken to retain mementos of the Astor, including its ornate Art Deco chandelier and gates. These are on display and in use inside the arena corridors, allowing insight into the ambience of the former movie house. The Santander Arena is owned by the Berks County Convention Center Authority and managed by ASM Global. In 2000, the Rajah Shrine Theater was purchased, and after a thorough restoration and updating of the facilities was renamed the Sovereign Performing Arts Center. The Reading Eagle Theater is part of the complex. On October 13, 2013, the building's name was changed from Sovereign Center to Santander Arena.The arena is home to the Reading Royals ice hockey team in the ECHL as well as the Alvernia University Golden Wolves ice hockey team of the NCAA DIII. It was formerly home to the Reading Railers basketball team, the New York Majesty Lingerie Football League team, the Reading Rockets box lacrosse team, and the Reading Express indoor football team. The arena has hosted Jehovah's Witnesses District Conventions from 2005 to 2013 and will host the renamed Regional Conventions of Jehovah's Witnesses beginning in 2015.

Berks County Trust Company building
Berks County Trust Company building

The Berks County Trust Company is a historic building in downtown Reading, Pennsylvania. Originally constructed in 1909, the six-story building was home to a bank known as the Berks County Trust Company and was the second largest bank branch in Berks County. The building still contains the original 1909 bank vault from the York Safe and Lock Company used by the building's eponymous bank. The building had additions built onto it in 1923, 1964 and 1984.The building was later used to house the Meridian Bancorp Inc., which controlled 36 percent of the Berks County banking market and $11.8 billion in assets across the region at the start of the 1990s. However, leading into the turn of the century, the local economy of Reading began to decline and Meridian Bancorp began adding millions of dollars into its bad-debt reserves, in addition to selling its credit card, indirect auto-loan and title-insurance businesses. The building was vacated in the early 2010s, likely due to a greater amount of financial difficulties stemming from the Great Recession which greatly impacted the already economically declining city.The building was purchased in 2018 by the Shuman Development Group with approval from the Reading City Council. The organization began a major renovation and restoration project that was overseen by the National Park Service. In 2021, the restoration project received a $250,000 tax credit allocation and $11,000,000 in estimated construction expenditures from the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development and the Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission. The restoration project seeks to convert the building into an office building with a food court in the main banking hall.The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on February 27, 2019.