The Sunday following Philadelphia’s apocalyptic microburst storm, the Garden Court gardeners gathered late in the day to honor our fallen fruit trees. They sat around the apple stump and shared stories of the shade the tree had offered on hot July days and the roost the branches had made for birds and squirrels. Of the
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When you were in high school, did you eat everything that got plopped onto your tray in the cafeteria? Some things never change, but W.B. Saul High School, an agriculture-focused high school in Northwest Philadelphia, has taken advantage of funding from the Green Schools program to help compost the leftovers (and the compostable trays). Saul
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“1854,” says Jacques-Jean “JJ” Tiziou, with authority, when asked about the origins of Philadelphia’s borders. “That’s when the Consolidation was signed: February 2, 1854.” Good luck finding another Philadelphian who could, on the spot, provide the exact date on which the Consolidation Act transformed the neat rectangle of William Penn’s colonial city — from Vine
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It was a muggy morning in mid-August and parents were gathered inside The Academy at Palumbo High School’s cafeteria, chatting animatedly over coffee and biscuits. The occasion was the First-Year Student Breakfast, an annual event the school’s Home and School Association (HSA) hosts to connect new families with school staff and parent volunteers. The meeting
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A flock of passenger pigeons rests frozen in time on the third floor of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University. The birds feed on the ground, rest on twigs and raise their wings to take to the air in a beech forest whose colonnade of gray trunks recedes into the diorama’s painted background.
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Nicole Pepe’s house on the 5100 block of Catharine Street shook as the tree hit it. She had been watching through a window as the fierce winds of the July 11 microburst whipped leaves and bits of roofing shingles in a vortex behind her house. “My husband said, ‘Get in the middle of the house,’”
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With the closing of the Academy of Natural Sciences, Drexel University has blundered into a spectacular public relations disaster. I could almost feel sorry for them, had their actions not been so cruel and heartless. When the news first broke, the reaction was a stunned grief. According to Drexel, this beloved museum, the public-facing side
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One in 10 Philadelphia public schools had high lead levels in water sources used for food preparation, according to tests conducted by the School District of Philadelphia (SDP) over the past three years. The dangerously high levels of lead, a potent neurotoxin linked to stunted development and learning difficulties, were found by the district during
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Dear Readers, Grid’s December issue, #211, will be its last in print. Our business model is no longer working. I have mixed feelings about making this announcement. As someone who has spent over three decades in this medium, I’m attached to it. I will forever prefer paper and ink to any other format. However, I’m
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Just before 10 a.m. on Sunday, Sept. 27, dozens of people stood in line outside the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, waiting in the spitting rain for the museum to open its doors to the public for the final time. Artie Cohen, 6, who’d been going to the Academy since he was 2
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