As a youngster riding with his parents on the short trip to McDonald’s on Ninth Street from their northeast Reading home, Wesley Butler’s much-anticipated fast-food treat would inevitable be halted for an agonizingly long time by firemen jockeying a ladder truck into tight engine bay of the fire station.
“As a kid who knew nothing about city government,” he recalled Saturday. “I’d be mad that I’d have to wait for the fire truck to pull up and get back into the station.
“I’d be hungry. “I always wondered why; why don’t they have a bigger space for a firetruck?”
Butler, now a city councilman, sees things from a different perspective, understanding the planning and funding it took to get that bigger space built.
He made his remarks during the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new, state-of-the-art 9th & Marion station, which is in the district he represents, expressing his gratitude, as did other speakers, for all who made the project reality.
“It comes full-circle today,” Butler said. “Because now that’s happened.”
It was a celebratory mood at the firehouse with active and retired firefighters attending along with current and former City Council members, and state Sen. Judy Schwank, a Ruscombmanor Township Democrat whose district includes Reading.
Notably present was Stratton Marmarou, a former councilman who championed the project for 16 years. Ironically, Marmarous, 91, lost his last re-election bid to Butler, a man nearly 70 years his junior.
Marmarou’s push for a new firehouse was motivated by more than delayed trips to McDonalds.
He first visited the 9th and Marion station shortly after he was elected in the early 2000s.
He and his late wife Joanne stopped in the station while on a tour of his council district. JoAnne had to use the bathroom and was horrified by cockroaches and some kind of growth coming through the walls.
Mayor Eddie Moran applauded Marmarou for his persistence through several city administrations and relentless pursuit of state funding from local lawmakers.
He recalled that the councilman didn’t mince words the first time they met shortly after Moran took office.
“The first thing he said to me was we need to get a new fire station at NInth and Marion,” the mayro said. “Literally the first thing.”
Ground was broken in November 2021 for new station across Marion Street from the 19th century station. The city earmarked $5 million of its federal allotment of American Rescue Plan funds for the project and used $4 million of its own capital funds for the project, the mayor said.
No one is more grateful than the fire department, especially the firefighters who have been pulling 24-hour shifts in the station with modern amenities since it opened this summer.
“It’s well overdue but it’s here and it’s a wonderful thing,” Reading Fire Chief James Stoudt Jr. said. “It’s something that I know a lot of our members never thought they would see. But it happened and we’re grateful. We truly are grateful for the building and for what was done for our department to have this magnificent structure.”
Among the amenities of the new three-story station is a spacious day room and kitchen on the third floor overlooking Ninth Street that opens up to a courtyard. There are also a number of smaller day rooms and larger turnout-gear storage and decontamination spaces.
And, of course, larger bays for storing today’s larger apparatus.
“There was a lot of thought put into this place,” Stoudt said.
Stoudt joked that he should apologize to Butler, nothing he may well have been driving one of the ladder trucks that slowed his trip to McDonald’s. He also said he may be responsible for a few of the missing bricks on the old station.
The fire chief said the city will be converting the old station for community use. Some of the relics from the old station, including the 1888 cornerstone, are going to be preserved and gradually integrated into the new structure.
Following the ceremony, guests were treated to guided tours of the fire station and food and coffee donated by local businesses and social clubs, including the nearby Northmont Fellowship Club and Jackson Democratic Social Club.
Source: Berkshire mont