Pagoda | |
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| Location | 98 Duryea Drive, Reading, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
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| Coordinates | 40°20′9″N75°54′22″W / 40.33583°N 75.90611°W |
| Built | 1907-08 |
| NRHP reference No. | 72001093 [1] |
| Added to NRHP | November 7, 1972 |
The Pagoda is a novelty building, built atop the south end of Mount Penn overlooking Reading, Pennsylvania, United States. It has been a symbol of the city for more than a century.
Completed in 1908 at a cost of $50,000, this pagoda was intended to be the hotel/restaurant centerpiece of a luxury resort. When plans for the rest of the resort were abandoned, the 7-story wooden building on 10 acres (4.0 ha) of land was donated to Reading in 1911. It is now part of the Mount Penn Preserve, 1,595 acres (645 ha) of municipally-owned land. [2]
The Pagoda is 28 feet (8.5 m) wide, 50 feet (15 m) long, and 72 feet (22 m) tall. Perched on the edge of a cliff, 620 feet (190 m) above the city and 886 feet (270 m) above sea level, [3] it offers a 30-mile (48 km) panoramic view of the city and the surrounding countryside. [4]
Within the top story hangs a tocsin, a massive bell cast in Obata, Mie Prefecture, Japan, in 1739, and formerly installed in a Buddhist temple in either Ogose or Hannō, Saitama Prefecture, just north of Tokyo. Listed on the bell's sides in Japanese characters are the names of its 48 donors and a prophecy about the end of time. [5] The temple was closed in 1881, and later destroyed. [6]
Anti-Japanese sentiment was rampant during World War II, and there were calls to demolish the building. But it was restored in 1949, with the lower story and balconies rebuilt in stone. In 1960, neon lights were installed outlining its roofs. In the 1970s, the Japanese garden was restored, and Japanese cherry trees were planted around the building. LED lights were installed in 2008-09. A webcam on its third floor periodically records and publishes the weather atop Mount Penn. [7]
The Pagoda is owned by the City of Reading but is managed and preserved by the Foundation for the Reading Pagoda. It functions as an icon for the City of Reading. The Pagoda is also the home of Pagoda Skyline, Inc., a non-profit volunteer organization formed in 1969 to help with the restoration and preservation of the Pagoda, the William Penn Memorial Fire Tower and Skyline Drive. [8]
It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.
Berks County is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. As of the 2020 census, the county's population was 428,849. The county seat is Reading, the fourth-most populous city in the state. The county is part of the South Central Pennsylvania region of the state.
Mount Penn is a borough in Berks County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 3,240 at the 2020 census. The borough shares a name with a 1,120-foot-high (340 m) mountain that rises to the north and overlooks the city of Reading. The peak is sometimes recognized as the southern end of the Reading Prong group of mountains.
Reading ( RED-ing; is a city in and the county seat of Berks County, Pennsylvania, United States. The city had a population of 95,112 at the 2020 census and is the fourth-most populous city in Pennsylvania after Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Allentown. Reading is located in the southeastern part of the state and is the principal city of the Greater Reading area, which had 420,152 residents in 2020.
St. Lawrence, is a borough in Berks County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 1,892 at the 2020 census. It sits just east of Mount Penn and Reading. It is served by the Exeter Township School District.
Philadelphia City Hall is the seat of the municipal government of the City of Philadelphia in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. Built in the ornate Second Empire style, City Hall houses the chambers of the Philadelphia City Council and the offices of the Mayor of Philadelphia.
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Mount Haguro is one of the Three Mountains of Dewa in the city of Tsuruoka, the ancient province of Dewa, Japan. It is a large shrine complex with a major Shinto shrine associated with Shugendo. As the lowest of the three mountains, standing at 414 m (1,358 ft), it is the only one that is accessible throughout the year. By contrast Gassan Shrine and Yudonosan Shrine, which are closed during winter due to heavy snowfall. Because of this it is considered the main shrine.
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Harris Switch Tower, also known as HG Tower or Harris Tower, is an interlocking tower in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in the United States. The tower was built in 1929 by the Pennsylvania Railroad and remained in operation until it was closed in 1991 by Amtrak. Harris was purchased by the local chapter of the National Railway Historical Society in 1992 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1994.
The Peter Wanner Mansion, also known as the "Mount Penn Home" is an historic, American mansion that is located in Reading, Berks County, Pennsylvania.
Muhlenberg Brothers was one of the dominant architecture/engineering firms in Reading, Pennsylvania during the first half of the 20th century, founded by a member of the Muhlenberg political dynasty.
The Reading Company used two passenger railway stations in or near Birdsboro, Pennsylvania. The Philadelphia and Reading Railroad built a station on its Main Line in Exeter Township, on the opposite side of the Schuylkill River from Birdsboro. The Wilmington and Northern Railroad established a freight line to Birdsboro in 1870, but it was not until after its merger with the Reading Company that its passenger station was built in the borough.
Mount Pisgah Lutheran Church, also known in its early years as the First Lutheran Church and First English Lutheran Church and more recently as The Sanctuary on Penn, is located at 701 North Pennsylvania Street in downtown Indianapolis, Indiana. The historic church was built by the city's first Lutheran congregation, which organized in 1837, and was its third house of worship. The former church, whose present-day name is The Sanctuary on Penn, is operated as a for-profit event venue.
The Pennsylvania State Game Lands Number 280 are Pennsylvania State Game Lands in Berks County in Pennsylvania in the United States providing hunting, bird watching, and other activities.
Major General David McMurtrie Gregg is a monumental statue located in Reading, Pennsylvania, United States. The monument was designed by Henry Augustus Lukeman and consists of an equestrian statue depicting David McMurtrie Gregg, a military officer who had served in the Union Army during the American Civil War. The monument was dedicated in 1922, several years after Gregg's death in Reading in 1916.
The William Penn Memorial Fire Tower is a fire lookout tower located on Mount Penn in Lower Alsace Township, Pennsylvania. Named after William Penn, the structure is owned by the city government of nearby Reading, Pennsylvania, which the tower overlooks. Work on the structure began in late 1938 as a project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), with the tower completed the following year. The tower remained in regular use, both as a tourist attraction and as a legitimate lookout tower, for the next several decades, although deterioration to the building caused it to be closed in 1988.
