In my previous two columns, I discussed a number of ways that the City could launch composting drop-off programs, either on its own or in partnership with private composting companies. A third way forward would be an expansion of Philadelphia Parks & Recreation’s Farm Philly Community Compost Network. Based on a program in Washington, D.C.,
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David Oh served as at-large City Councilmember (Republican) from 2012 to 2023, when he resigned to run for mayor. Oh worked as an attorney before running for City Council and served in the Army National Guard from 1988 to 1992. On Parks Funding The fact that Philadelphia is spending less proportionally of its own budget,
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Asim King hopped off the 32 bus, beat the red light crossing Kelly Drive and fast-walked to the Cosmic Café at 1 Boathouse Row. “Got to be on time,” King said at the café, a bright place that brims with enticing aromas. Like 20 of the café’s 30 employees, King has a developmental disability. Disabled
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The small light-brown button excavated in broiling August heat rests in the palm of Megan C. Kassabaum, Ph.D., associate professor of anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania and Weingarten Associate Curator for North America at the Penn Museum. Dug up from one of three small sites in the parking lot behind the Community Education Center
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Margaret isn’t as mobile as she used to be. At 79 and still recovering from a car accident that forced her to learn how to walk again, she relies on her walker and cane to get around. Some days she doesn’t descend the stairs from the second floor of her North Philadelphia home because the
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On a sunny afternoon in late spring, 27 sixth graders from Mount Airy’s Henry H. Houston Elementary School skipped and hooted their way to SEPTA’s Carpenter Train Station, as if already savoring the adventure of planting trees there. “We identified flowers and pollinators along the way,” says Christine Bush, a STEM (science, technology, engineering and
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Today, Weavers Way Co-op counts more than 10,000 member households, with storefronts in Ambler, Chestnut Hill and Mount Airy, and a new store due to open this year in Germantown. But long-time member Sylvia Carter can remember 50 years back to its humble beginnings as a buying club in a church basement. Carter moved to
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Samara Banks was the life of the party. Everyone waited for her to arrive at family gatherings, knowing that she would be the one to rally her cousins and entertain the crowd with a song or dance. “She was always happy and hopeful,” Latanya Byrd says. “She loved children and people loved her naturally. And
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The late autumn wind began to bite during the 1838 Black Metropolis walking tour last year, but historian Michiko Quinones warmed the 10 participants with stories of riches, a riot and secret dealings in Philly’s antebellum Black community. “Some 20,000 Black people lived in Philadelphia in the late 1830s,” Quinones said. “The 1838 census showed
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It was a muggy morning, on a midsummer Wednesday, and the fish weren’t biting. A dozen or so preteens kept dropping their baited lines into the water from a dock and pulling them out empty. Or often, tangled, requiring repeated assistance of nearby camp counselors. A tedious exercise? Perhaps. But just beneath the surface were
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Jim Loudon’s face lights up as he recalls reaching his one-million-meter ergometer (commonly known as a rowing machine) goal earlier this year. Many rowers can achieve that in two months, he says. It took Loudon two years — but he did it as a below-the-left-elbow amputee. An eight-time indoor rowing world record holder, Loudon trains
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