{"nrhp_refnum":"80003483","name":"Hershey Community Center Building","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"2 Chocolate Ave.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Hershey","county":"Dauphin County","state":"PA","lat":40.28550524000008,"lon":-76.64860566099998,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1980-10-15","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Community Planning and Development","Architecture","Social History"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A five-story limestone community center building in Hershey, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, built 1932-33 by Hershey Estates with C. Emlen Urban as architect, and shaped like a distended E with an open court in front.","why_significant":"The nomination argues the building is the culmination of Milton S. Hershey's plan to provide recreational facilities for his employees and the town's residents. Its design, with input from Philadelphia architect Paul Cret in the early phases, gives the town a distinctive landmark. The building is also tied to the growth of Hershey's recreation and education facilities from the early Cocoa House stage onward.","narrative":"Built in 1932-33 by Hershey Estates, the Hershey Community Center is a five-story building of faced white Indiana limestone, shaped like a distended E with an open court at the front. Its design was shaped in its early phases by Philadelphia architect Paul Cret working with Milton S. Hershey. The building holds about 190,699 square feet, including a large theatre seating 2,000, a small theatre, a gymnasium, tiled pools, game rooms, locker rooms, a library and dormitories. Its interiors show a range of decorative schemes, among them a lobby in Adam style with solid walnut woodwork and an entrance hall after a Greek design. The building is significant as the final stage of Hershey's long effort to give his employees and townspeople a place for recreation, which began with a small stage in the Cocoa House hallway and a YMCA in 1911. The form describes the building as in excellent condition and unaltered.","period_of_significance":"1900-","architect_builder":"C. Emlen Urban (architect); Hershey Estates (builder)","architectural_style":null,"criteria":[],"status_note":"Excellent condition, unaltered, on its original site, according to the form.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-haiku-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.1-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 17:11:32.550977-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_PA/80003483.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/80003483/c3505ba3f7-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/80003483/c3505ba3f7-1600.webp","licence":"CC0","author":"Smallbones","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hershey_PA_Community_Center.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Smallbones</a>, <a href=\"http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/deed.en\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hershey_PA_Community_Center.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/71995873","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hershey_Community_Center_Building","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5744500"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/pennsylvania/dauphin-county/hershey-community-center-building-80003483/"}