Tuesday odds and ends ...

Greetings friends! Just a couple of new things to share. First of all, I received my tickets today for the Annual Reading Witches & Pagans Masquerade Ball this year. It will be held at the Crown Plaza Hotel on Saturday, November 3rd and will include a dinner and entertainment. This is a formal affair and everyone is expected to dress in appropriate attire. So, I have picked out this dress to wear. All I need to do is get a half mask to go with it ...

I have never attended this event before, so I am very much looking forward to it! I also wanted to share more information with you regarding the history of The Reading Pagoda which I spoke about briefly in my previous post. Beautiful and historic, this is one of the few things that I am proud of in our City of Reading ... regardless of this city's terrible current circumstances, this is one structure which has, thankfully, never changed. :)

Completed in 1908, The Reading 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 Reserve of municipally-owned land. It offers a 30-mile (48 km) panoramic view of the city and the surrounding countryside.


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 Old Japanese (kanji) characters are the names of its 48 donors and a prophecy about the end of time. The temple was closed in 1881, and later destroyed.

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.
 
The Pagoda is owned by the City of Reading but is managed and preserved by the Foundation for the Reading Pagoda. It houses a small café and a gift shop, and 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.

It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972. 

One last thing, I sent the Fall Giveaway gifts out this morning, so please let me know if they are not received by the end of next week. Thanks all!!