When president Donald Trump signed an executive order to halt federal spending on January 27, its impacts hit close to home. Despite the decision being rescinded two days later, the fate of funding for environmental work remains murky due to the vague language and unclear legality of the sweeping order. It left sustainability-focused groups, including
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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
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When it comes to how the City manages public land, the deck is stacked. When the City leased the Cobbs Creek Golf Course to the Cobbs Creek Foundation, a West Conshohocken-based nonprofit, for $1 for 30 years, there were no competing bids. There was no discussion about how people in the community might like to
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You’d think that after protecting 50 gardens, the process would get easier. But for the Neighborhood Gardens Trust (NGT), a nonprofit tasked with preserving gardens, securing each parcel of land is a unique challenge. This spring NGT and members of Brewerytown Garden at 27th and Master streets celebrated the protection of some of the garden’s
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In 1737, William Penn’s son Thomas and Penn’s secretary, James Logan — Logan Circle’s namesake — did one of the dirtiest deals in the country’s history. The Walking Purchase, specified that the Lenape Indians, whose homeland of Lenapehoking, stretched from the Chesapeake to New York, would sell Thomas Penn as much land as a man
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Philadelphia City Council’s Committee on Rules voted on June 15 to advance Councilmember Katherine Gilmore Richardson’s bill to close some loopholes in Philadelphia’s tree regulations. As Grid has reported, highlights of the bill include a community notification process for tree clearing, expanding tree replacement rules to public land, and fees in lieu of replacing cut
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On June 22, the following letter was sent by email to Mayor Jim Kenney, Parks & Recreation, members of City Council, Commissioner Kathryn Ott Lovell and their respective staff. It was also hand delivered on June 20 to Ott Lovell. It is a response to various problems identified within the FDR Park Plan, completed in
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I’m one of the last to arrive, which means the full spectacle of the protest hits me at once as I come around the bend. A crowd of 150 people holding banners and signs surrounds a massive inflatable of CEO Tim Buckley on the lawn in front of the Malvern headquarters of Vanguard. The likeness
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Black Birders Week 2022 was celebrated from May 31 to June 5. This year Grid caught up with three local Black birders to hear their stories. Katrina Clark I started birding during the pandemic. Mostly a friend and I were walking. We were like, “We have to get out of the house.” We started walking
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Air is something we share. But clean air, it turns out, is not equally available to all. Using technology with an almost cartoonish name, the PurpleAir monitor, Christina Rosan thinks making disparities in air quality “in your face” will lead to more equitable, citizen-informed public policies. Advocating for clean air everywhere, she believes, could promote
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It’s hard to find someone with anything bad to say about the High Line, the abandoned elevated train track that reopened in 2009 as a park after years of organizing by advocates in Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood. In 2019, before the pandemic, the High Line drew 8 million visitors a year. It has been a critical
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