Since May, the 13th Street bike lane has sported some new protective infrastructure: a series of plastic modular curbs. Between Locust and Chestnut streets, 18 of these curbs have been installed along the bike lane, stationed between existing flex posts, which have lined many of the city’s bike lanes for years. The new protectors were
More
There is a surprising truth about the affordability of solar panels that few people understand: despite all the headlines, solar has never been more affordable. It’s easy to see why people might think otherwise. If you’ve been following the news about cuts to solar incentives — and to just about anything perceived as “green” —
More
Surrounding nearly every suburban business center and office park are swaths of manicured grass, occasionally interrupted by ornamental landscaping. Unlike green space at schools or residential complexes, it’s rare to see this outdoor space used for recreation or sunbathing. In fact, it isn’t really used for anything. Up Top Acres, an agricultural startup based in
More
How much do you love your park? Maybe enough to organize or participate in a cleanup, raise or donate money to make an improvement, or lead an educational walk. Or maybe you don’t have the time or money to donate, but simply find your local park to be a refuge — and appreciate the work
More
Two hundred and fifty years ago, as a new nation was being born in Philadelphia, botanist William Bartram was on the Altamaha River in Georgia — the edge of the infant United States — nearing the end of a three-year plant-collecting expedition. In addition to Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas, he had traversed the “powerful
More
On May 4, following the unanimous passing of the “ICE Out” legislative package by Philadelphia City Council, a series of letters were sent by the federal government to City officials demanding they turn over years worth of materials concerning “far-left” immigrant activist groups. Among the groups singled out was Asian Americans United (AAU), a community
More
While Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker’s ambitious Housing Opportunities Made Easy initiative (H.O.M.E.) sets out to close the city’s affordable housing gap, some area nonprofits have begun working against an unintended consequence they foresee: the illegal act of short dumping demolition waste, often in known dumping hotspots in Black and Brown neighborhoods. The community “collaboratory” Trash
More
On a June monday evening, the loudest sound in the South Philadelphia Library was the clicking of computer keyboards. Behind the busy island of computers, another group of people filtered into a classroom filled with green plastic chairs and soft ambient music: a space of quiet resistance. “I’m tired of AI being shoved down my
More
In retrospect, it’s possible to reconstruct a recipe that enabled Catie Gainor to create her South Philly cookbook store, Binding Agents. Start with a family connection to the food business and a mother who loved cooking for friends and family. Add a high school summer spent working at a bookstore, early exposure to classic TV
More
The front door of Chris Hytha’s 1857 Fishtown-area rowhome opens to face a spotlit shelf cabinet — a “house museum” of artifacts: the house’s old lead water main, a hunk of its original stone foundation and a block of termite-hollowed wood. The artifacts catalogue the house’s history — and the hurdles of Hytha’s now two-year
More