08/23/2025
Those were the days, my friend.
Remember when Penn Street could pull you in by scent alone? The day began with Crystal hot dogs steaming in their buns and pink cakes winking from the Mohican’s windows. Soft pretzel men in fingerless gloves turned warm knots from glass-domed wagons into paper bags, and somewhere along the curb a man with a box camera caught you mid-smile, the city reflected in the shop glass behind you.
On stifling summer afternoons, we slipped from the sun into cool darkness where the air hummed and the carpets swallowed our steps. The Embassy, the Astor, the Warner, Loew’s, the Ritz—names that sounded like cathedrals when you were ten. Candy machines clinked out jujubes and chocolate raisins, Movietone News rolled, and a forest of March of Dimes jars glittered outside under Eleanor Roosevelt’s steady grin. By Saturday, the Ritz belonged to kids and cowboys—Hoppy and Roy, Gene and Trigger—while the balcony rumbled with bologna-on-rye and shoe-tapping glee.
We learned to be teenagers under neon. Big Y, Little Y—floor wax and slow songs—duck-tails and saddle shoes measuring the distance between “maybe” and “yes.” After the Sunday show at Loew’s, Esther Williams’ technicolor water still in our eyes, we threaded through cruising fender skirts and continental kits to Moore’s Diner for colas and fries smothered in gravy. Root beer floats waited in every drugstore, movie magazines hung from metal racks like tickets to a wider life. Easter brought the museum lawns and best shoes; July burst over Pendora; the Pagoda waited for whispered plans. Proms at the Wyomissing Club, awards at the Astor—rites of passage with a shine on them.
The 400 block was a city within the city. Kins to Whitner’s tea room—dumplings, bread filling, the hush of polished silver. Sears catalogs thick as harvests, Reed’s windows foaming with hats, Farr’s great boot sign promising shoes for every season. Saylor’s eclairs, Shaffer’s sofas, Acme’s parking lot full of Packards and Hudsons idling while someone “just ran in.” Berks County Trust kept what you could spare, and below the sidewalks the green-tiled comfort station gleamed of pine oil and care, uniformed attendants at the glass doors, a hidden kindness in the middle of it all.
Up Schuylkill Avenue, a bright yellow bear smiled over Bremmer’s garage. The House of Good Shepherd kept quiet watch, needle by needle, over Communion dresses. Kline’s Drugs traded headlines and hellos; Cassel’s tallied groceries on a credit slip when Fridays meant fish. Kirby’s tubs winked with bug-eyed perch and clams; the 15th Ward club poured birch beer into frosty mugs. The Rio’s lobby smelled of tickets and tin, its candy machines swallowing nickels and returning sweet patience; Rocket Men rose to the moon while Hopalong rode straight through our disbelief. Now the projection beam is gone, but the glow still lingers if you stand in the right spot and close your eyes.
We learned thrift and delight at the five-and-dimes—Kresge’s, Grant’s, Woolworth’s, McCrory’s, Green’s—where lunch counters smoked and pageboy salesgirls sold ribbon and promise with Bette Davis poise. Filipino boys carved palm trees on yo-yos and made “Walking the Dog” look easy. A dress for a dollar-fifty, Kiwi for a shine, a meatloaf plate and a cold drink for a buck even. At Christmas, Plasticville snow drifted around Lionel tracks, engines racing, cows wandering onto rails only to be nudged back by mechanical men while Bing, Bob, and Brenda Lee sang from somewhere just above the toy aisle.
And then Pomeroy’s—miracle change whooshing through clear tubes, elevator men and frosty doors, and a sixth-floor Toyland that felt like the North Pole had a Reading zip code. Cotton candy spun itself into halos as cap guns snapped and Schwinn spokes flashed. Santa took a break now and then, but he always came back.
Carsonia Park arrived on rails—the trolley’s sway, the Old Mill’s hush, whispers of rats and wire-framed scenes ghosting past your boat. The Pretzel swung and clanked you into another world; the gypsy’s head turned to tell you what you wanted to hear. The carousel’s calliope brightened the trees while the Thunderbolt rattled the sky. Chalk Lone Rangers watched over nickel cokes and Cracker Jack, the Crystal Ballroom spilled slow dances into summer air, and the Grecian pool made lifeguards and wool trunks look like movie stills. Jack Rabbits jumped; Dodge-’Em cars bumped; and when the trolleys carried the last people load home, the night kept the music.
September meant the Reading Fair—harness horses on the grand circuit track, Hell Drivers smashing their way into legend, Cetlin & Wilson barking past the butter Last Supper and the two-headed cow. Sunshine and Reading brewery tents, school days with mule races and pie bakes, hogs parading like royalty. Johnny Mathis, Pat Boone, Lillian Briggs, Gene Vincent, Carl Perkins in clean blue suede—the grandstand a passport to whatever came next. Miss Reading Fair lifted her crown; somewhere a clown fell into a moat; and the long echo hasn’t quite faded from where the highway and the mall now stake their claim.
We don’t get it back. But some afternoons I swear I can taste the lime rickey from People’s, hear the Embassy Bar’s horn through the door, and feel the cool tile underfoot beneath Penn Street. Ghosts of a city, yes—but friendly ones, who take your arm, point up at a marquee, and say, Come on—just one more show.
