Editing Reading Terminal Market (section)

=== Age and Founding ===

Reading Terminal Market opened for business on February 22, 1893, making it over 130 years old. The original market occupied approximately 78,000 square feet and held nearly 800 merchant stalls, each measuring six feet wide. By 1913, the market was booming with 250 food dealers and 100 farmers occupying its spaces.

The market survived the decline of the Reading Railroad (which went bankrupt in 1971) and the construction of the Pennsylvania Convention Center in the 1990s, which incorporated the historic train shed while preserving the market below. Today, two vendors—Bassett's Ice Cream and Spataro's Cheesesteaks—are descendants of original merchants from the 1893 opening.