In the wake of Donald Trump’s imminent return to the White House, I know many of you are feeling a deep sense of frustration and disillusionment. This election marks not just a setback for those committed to democratic values, but also a looming threat to environmental protections. It’s no secret that a second Trump administration
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It was flooding in the Ablett Village public housing development in Camden’s Cramer Hill neighborhood. It had rained overnight from Saturday, April 24, into Sunday, April 25, and that brought water that pooled in driveways and on the sidewalks running between the area’s long, two-story brick apartment buildings. This is not at all unusual, according
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About 120 years ago a nature enthusiast named Charles McIlvaine explored the Angora Woods of West Philadelphia hunting for mushrooms. While most of the Angora Woods have long since been built up, a fringe of the area remains along Cobbs Creek. It was there that I met up with a modern-day fungi enthusiast, Luke Smithson.
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This is the first time I’ve ever cracked open a beer as I started an article. It’s a Delco Lager from 2SP Brewing Company: a bit malty and quite drinkable, good for a warm spring day. At 4% alcohol by volume (ABV), the buzz shouldn’t interfere with writing (you be the judge). The alcohol isn’t
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On May 9, 1715, Andreas Sandel, a minister at the Gloria Dei Church, aka Old Swedes’ (929 South Water Street), made a note in his journal that “some singular flies came out of the ground.” “The English call them locusts,” he wrote. “When they left the ground, holes could be seen everywhere in the roads
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When I was a kid—we’ll call this long ago time “the ’70s”—seatbelts hung unused while Mom’s arm reached across our bodies any time our car came to a sudden stop. Beer and soda were packaged in aluminum cans and had what was called a “pull-tab,” or “ring-tab.” You would put your finger through the ring
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Anisa George sees a strong connection between theater and forest therapy: they both involve improvisation. “You enter the rehearsal space, invite the ensemble to try different things, to engage with the environment,” George says. George was drawn to the practice because of its focus on the body and the natural world. Her career as an
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On a trip to the Meadows at FDR Park at the end of last summer, we got our feet wet. The Meadows is a repurposing of the recently closed golf course at the South Philadelphia park. What were once fairways are now green spaces for play, short-term art installations and homes for wildlife. We were
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Dan Lavin returned from his friend Chuck’s wake feeling troubled. Lavin and his now-deceased husband had met Chuck and his wife in a support group for people with cancer. “Chuck was a really sharp-witted, spitfire kind of guy,” Lavin says. In the throes of his illness, Chuck bought a Corvette with a license plate that
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I love food. I feel like I need to say that because last month we did a vegan issue and I wrote a diatribe about Facebook’s failure to recognize that they are publishers, and how they shirk their responsibilities to society. Since publication, I’ve tried Vannah Banana’s vegan ice cream and it is delicious. This
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Stephen Maciejewski hit the streets of Center City before dawn one morning last October to look for dead and injured birds, just like he did every morning during fall migration. Maciejewski, a volunteer for Audubon Pennsylvania, walked a set route around the glass-and-concrete canyons, documenting where he found birds that had collided with windows. He
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