Cool video! But it wasn't really meant to compete with Vanity Fair. The mall was built under the assumption that spot would become an Amtrak stop. Unfortunately it never happened so, the retailers pulled out en masse, and it became what it is today.
Sad. Used to walk by there every day on my way to RHS, but that was in the 80s when the property was still an abandoned train yard and buildings. I think of my old home town often and I've long since moved far away. Too bad its gone so far downhill, but you have to go where the work is. We can't run an economy selling each other hamburgers and cheap goods to folks.
I grew up in the 1100 block of N 6th St.. There was a very nice bedding store on Spring St. In that place. I moved out of Reading in 1999. I am 57.Reading was a very nice place to live when I was a child.
Good view of the now demolished Nolde and Horst mills (later Moss St outlets/Great Factory Store) at @1:30. Excellent example of turn of the century factory architecture, a shame it wasn't redeveloped into something useful.
Location, location, location. In 2019 Reading, PA is extremely poor. In 1998 it was extremely violent for the time. This place was a serious mistake from day one.
Yea in the late 90s reading had one of the highest crime rates for cities of its size then in 2016 it was named the poorest city on american soil....not good times for one of the most industrialized cities for it's time during the industrial revolution
