The Parkside Saints finally found a home. An October 4, 2019 announcement from Philadelphia’s Rebuild initiative announced the completion of a practice field for the youth football club at the Parkside Evans Playground in West Philadelphia. The Saints, founded in 2010 by Coach Cliff Smith, had practiced in whatever open space they could find in
MoreEditor’s Notes: A Hot, Plastic Mess
I’d been hearing about the South Philly Meadows for some time, so I finally paid a visit. I biked from Center City — a very manageable 29-minute ride — and started to wander. The sound of traffic on Pattison Avenue began to fade with every step into the open, unplanned expanse, and the birdsongs grew
MoreThe FDR Park Master Plan needs reconsidering
Grid has been hearing a lot lately about FDR Park. After our series of articles on the development of the Cobbs Creek golf courses, Philadelphians concerned about the fate of the South Philly Meadows got in touch to defend the park’s former fairways against a plan to develop the beloved greenspace into a complex of
MoreTed pickett counts himself lucky. He and his wife were home when the flooding started. As Hurricane Isaias dumped rain over the Delaware Valley and Darby Creek crested its banks on August 4, 2020, he and his wife got to work. “We were able to mitigate a real nasty thing,” Pickett says. For five hours
MoreOn October 11, 2021, Indigenous Peoples’ Day, a worker in an excavator arrived at the Sedgley Woods disc golf course and began clearing a road along the boundary with the Strawberry Green driving range next door. “On the first day of the destruction I happened to be on my lunch break in my car at
MoreWant to get involved with advocacy around the Cobbs Creek Golf Course development? Two opportunities are coming up this month: First, the Cobbs Creek Foundation, which is the nonprofit developing the golf courses, is holding a town hall Zoom meeting on May 18 at 7 p.m..: The Cobbs Creek Foundation (a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization), would
MoreThe sun shone bright on a landscape cross-hatched with felled trees on a walking tour of the Cobbs Creek Golf Course on April 4. The Cobbs Creek Restoration and Community Foundation, the organization overseeing the revamping of the golf course, had the trees cut down, said Dana Henry, the tour guide and a spokesperson with
MoreParks advocates led by the Philadelphia Parks Alliance gathered on the afternoon of April 21 for a “Rec It Philly” rally at City Hall. Mayor Jim Kenney’s 2023 budget proposal asks for a $2.5 million increase over 2022 funding for Philadelphia Parks & Recreation, less than the $8 million increase that the Parks Alliance says
MoreAt a recent community walk-through to review the deforestation executed by the Cobbs Creek Restoration and Community Foundation, a foundation representative said (as quoted in Grid’s coverage of the event) that the foundation had taken part in more than 100 community outreach meetings. “We had more than 100 meetings to tell the community about the
MoreOn April 13, the Philadelphia Art Commission dealt a setback to the Cobbs Creek Foundation in its plans to renovate the Cobbs Creek and Karakung golf courses, voting to deny conceptual approval to two planned buildings. The Cobbs Creek Foundation has cleared about 100 acres of woods in its overhaul of the public golf courses
MoreBy Bernard Brown This story was updated after publication with a quote from the Mayor’s Office. It looks like the already sweet deal that the Cobbs Creek Foundation made with the city could be getting even sweeter. On March 30 Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney released his capital budget proposal for fiscal year 2023, which, on page
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