Reading, Pennsylvania

Here's a link to an August 27, 2008 article from The Reading Eagle Newspaper. This simply backs up and documents my prior post. It's sad to see a once-great city such as this go down the toilet to such an extent. I don't know the solution, except to suggest (a) that it will begin (if ever) in the homes and the schools, and (b) that it will take time -- measured in years if not generations. I'll be revisiting this subject in future postings. Article Link: http://www.readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=103762

Reading, Pennsylvania

Reading, Pennsylvania: It's the town I adopted as home over 30 years ago. I described it then to a law school classmate as a "little jewel set in a bend on the Schuylkill River in the capital of Pennsylvania Dutch country." True at the time, but, sadly, no more. In those days, several major banks, a global engineering firm, a leading auto-body manufacturer, a specialty steel company and any number of other energetic, profitable industries made their homes in this town. And, if you ever told someone from Philadelphia that you lived in Reading, you were likely to be asked: "Have you eaten at Joe's?" That was a legendary fine-dining restaurant which could challenge any of the world's best. This city was home to the literary likes of John Updike and Wallace Stevens, and any number of lesser literary lights -- including, I presume to say, myself. I was proud and happy to come to Reading. But the times have changed. Witness:Farewell to one friendly corner pub. Witness further: Farewell to a commuter rail line which, in its day, carried people from Philadelphia to Reading, with a number of stops in between, and all the way to Pottsville, once a hub of the Pennsylvania anthracite industry. I rode this line from Conshohocken to Reading for a number of months before I moved the family up here. The line closed in (as I recall) in1980. Now, some forward-thinking folks are wondering why the hell they ever did away with it, and looking for ways to bring it back. The Reading Railroad itself -- that creature of the coal, iron and transportation industries in this Commonwealth, was one of my father's principal clients when he worked in the steel-castings industry back in the 1950s and early '60s. He used to bring me up here with him from the Main Line on business trips in the summer. We'd come up to Reading, he'd make his business calls at the Reading shops on North Sixth Street, and then we'd visit the teeming farmers' market at Tenth and Penn Streets. Afterwards, if there was time, we'd visit local attractions such as Crystal Cave and Onyx Cave out in the countryside. Here's a hint of what's left: A railroad-crossing barrier control box at Seventh and Franklin Streets; An omega loop in a steam line which probably hasn't carried steam since the 1950s; A busted-out window in one of the machine shops where Herculean steam locomotives were maintained. Well, I suppose there's no point in getting all lugubrious about what once was. Still, it's good to at least try to remember, eh?

Urban Hieroglyphics

I live near, and work in, in a city (Reading, PA) which has a history dating back to Colonial times and which, in its day, was one of Pennsylvania's premier commercial, industrial and financial centers. At this point in history, however, dear old Reading is wandering in a wilderness of social and ethnic change. My work takes me through some of the rather sadly rundown parts of Reading where, among other things, there's a peculiarly archetypal form of local folk art which, like the cave-paintings of our prehistoric ancestors, seems to evoke something which language does not convey very well. So... Urban Hieroglyphics I: And Urban Hieroglyphics II: And Urban Hieroglyphics III: Don't ask me why, but I find these images arresting. The round one I take to be a male figure. In two of the three drawings, he's wearing something on his head -- some totemic symbol of dominance, perhaps. The teardrop-shaped figure I take to be a female symbol. I'd be interested to know if anyone visiting this blog has anything to add to my off-the-cuff and very incomplete interpretation. I've spent a lot of my life being full of baloney, and it won't kill me to go there yet again.