{"id":204340,"date":"2026-05-28T09:50:24","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T09:50:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/204340\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T09:50:24","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T09:50:24","slug":"letter-berks-should-not-abandon-courthouse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/204340\/","title":{"rendered":"Letter: Berks should not abandon courthouse"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As downtown Reading grows more vibrant, I\u2019m aghast at the idea that our Berks County Courthouse \u2014 the city\u2019s tallest building \u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.readingeagle.com\/2026\/05\/13\/reading-officials-raise-concerns-over-berks-countys-plan-to-buy-downtown-building\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">might fall into disuse<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Sure, it\u2019s costly to restore an historic building, but that isn\u2019t stopping others. Just blocks away, Shuman Development Group has brought new life to the Abraham Lincoln, our county\u2019s second-tallest structure. At Trinity Lutheran Church \u2014 the third-tallest \u2014 we are marking 275 years alongside Berks as the nation celebrates 250. In celebration, we\u2019re beginning a complete, $3 million restoration of our 1791 sanctuary, on the heels of repainting the steeple, replacing the chiller, and renovating the annex.<\/p>\n<p>I pray our neighbors one block south might see what we see: that historic buildings, like a vibrant downtown, are worth every dollar they demand and should remain a point of pride on our prominent skyline.<\/p>\n<p>The Rev. Hans E. Becklin<\/p>\n<p>Senior Pastor, Trinity Lutheran Church, Reading<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As downtown Reading grows more vibrant, I\u2019m aghast at the idea that our Berks County Courthouse \u2014 the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5550,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[349,5037,1559,28,128,130,129],"class_list":["post-204340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-berks-county","tag-letters-to-the-editor","tag-opinion","tag-pennsylvania","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204340\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}