Kai Wonder was preparing for graduate school when everything changed. Just as
Grief hangs like a shroud. The memories from so many years together
A red-bellied turtle basking on a log next to a pocket of
In the 340 years since Philadelphia’s founding, the city’s landscape has constantly
If you want to go — ultimately, that is — the way
I was a student at King [High School] when I heard about
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On an April morning the heat soars into the realm of summer as a runner cruises back and forth along a paved path. A pair of chatting college students overtakes a man walking a spotted dog. And beyond the green borders, urban sounds from sirens and passing trolleys fade as birdsong rises through the trees.
Philadelphia is a city of old houses that offer, as anyone who lives in anything from a two-story row house to a grand Victorian knows, plenty of gaps where wildlife can slip in. Bats, flying squirrels and especially gray squirrels and raccoons can end up making a home in old crawl spaces, chimneys and in
In the fall of 2020 Maria DiMauro, an artist who lives in Old City, opened her Facebook account and clicked through pictures of warblers, vireos and catbirds that had died by crashing into Center City windows. She saw more than just dead birds. The pictures had been taken on October 2, 2020 by Stephen Maciejewski,
The year was 1970. The Jackson 5’s “I’ll Be There” was a number-one hit. The New York Knicks were the NBA champs. And Amira Abdul-Wakeel had made her first pound cake. Although she was extremely proud of her creation, her pride was quickly tempered when her mother tried it and proclaimed, “Sweetie, this is the
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Watch how organizations like Fabscrap and All Together Now PA are supporting sustainable clothing designers like Lobo Mau increasing textile recycling to build a circular textile industry in Philadelphia. Read the full cover story here. Grid and Fabscrap are also hosting a live panel discussion on the cover story on Jan 19th, register here.
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It’s hard to know which battles to choose. We are confronted with such an overwhelming list of environmental problems (global warming, biodiversity loss, air pollution, environmental racism, sewage flooding into our rivers…) — not to mention all the interrelated social ills such as systemic racism, poverty and unabating gun violence — that we can excuse
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The biggest muskie that Eric Hinkley has landed in the Schuylkill was almost four feet long. Muskie (short for muskellunge) are possibly the most challenging (and awesome) game fish to catch in North America. The long and muscular ambush predators sit and wait for food to swim by, but their discriminating eye makes it hard
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Nicole Chandler has tended Overbrook’s Morris Park for so long that, when she talks, one imagines the scent of clean earth. “The City had written the park out of its 2005 budget,” says Chandler, 53, who lives across the street from the 64-acre site. “They were … going to let it naturalize, which means let
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Everyone is invited to a baby shower taking place from June 22 to 23 at Independence Mall in Philadelphia. There’s no need to bring gifts. Just be ready to advocate for Atlantic sturgeon, which will be hatching right about then a mile to the east, in the Delaware River. The shower will be held by
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Long after its contents have been unpacked and used, the humble cardboard box can keep on working. Finding a second life for a box is relatively simple in the home, where it can help organize storage in a basement or closet, serve as a play hideout for kids and even morph into an end table.
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Without life to animate it, to hold it in a characteristic pose or to propel it through the air, a dead bird on the sidewalk can look like a rag or clump of dead leaves. But when I got a little closer to the mystery clump next to the Ciocca Subaru dealership in Gray’s Ferry,
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For residents of West Philadelphia, spring is a season for the senses. As trees and flowers break into full bloom, some of the city’s greenest neighborhoods reach their most beautiful state. The air feels fresh, the sun seems brighter than ever, and the community is rejuvenated. But there’s an unwelcome companion that also emerges at
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As a black woman, Taneesha Maxwell may be an outlier in the waste hauling business that has historically been dominated by men. But as owner of T Maxwell Junk Removal and Cleanouts (@tmaxmovesjunk on Instagram), she is bringing a new face to the cleanout game, serving residents and property managers throughout Philadelphia and Delaware County,
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Tim Eads pulls out his box cutter, slices a panel from a flattened cardboard box and then feeds it through a tabletop perforator. What goes in as waste comes out as packing material. What began as a way to source more-sustainable packing material for Tuft the World, the rug tufting company Eads owns with his
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