Given the unruliness of time machines, apt to choose their own destinations, you’ll need a bike, car or SEPTA to see the scattered sites where enslaved Black women helped to get colonial Philadelphia going.Take Black Alice, aka Alice of Dunks Ferry, who reached age 116, c.1686 to 1802, historians say. Her parents, from Barbados, arrived
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In 1970, the City of Philadelphia closed off the East Park Reservoir at the edge of the Strawberry Mansion neighborhood. A gate blocked the ramp up from Fairmount Park. “I grew up in Strawberry Mansion, and the reservoir was used by the community as a recreational space,” explains Tonnetta Graham, president of the Strawberry Mansion Community
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On two legs, museums make sense. You’re able to see and be seen over the ticket counter or visitor information desk. Informational panels next to objects are relatively close to eye level. It’s easy to spot signage pointing you upstairs to another collection—and easy to get up those stairs once you do.For a wheelchair user,
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Want to go mountain biking? You could travel a few hours to the Poconos or Catskills. You could go to the Delaware Water Gap, maybe, and do some adventure touring. Or, you could stick around Philadelphia, because we have some of the most sought-after mountain-biking trails in the region. Yes, here in Philadelphia proper.
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Russell Craig stands in his Fairmount art studio, a few floors up in a brownstone church. It’s a little messy—there are buckets of paint stacked against the walls and acrylic paint tubes scattered between plastic tubs and paintbrushes on the floor—but he isn’t embarrassed by the chaos.“This is the process,” he says.Craig is a self-taught
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In the days before Philadelphia elections, 250 subscribers receive “The Devor Report,” a detailed list of recommendations for Democratic voters intended to ease confusion about the voting process and ballot questions.The report’s author, Jen Devor, works as director of partnerships for Campus Philly, an economic development organization focused on retaining college students to the city.
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Several days ago, our neighbors gave birth to a baby girl. My wife and I were discussing our newest and tiniest neighbor with our three year-old daughter, who suggested that we should bring a gift. “We could give her one of our books that we don’t like,” she suggested. Her unguarded offer, at once both generous
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For ten years Grid magazine has invited us to repair the planet and help one another. Most media scream that everything is getting worse because people are dangerous or stupid. Yet thousands of Philadelphians are building hundreds of businesses and organizations that shift power toward ecology and justice.Meanwhile, modern society demands we compromise with the
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