A new Park Ambassador program from Philadelphia Parks & Recreation is focused on keeping park spaces clean while building stronger connections with the people who use them. Funded by the William Penn Foundation, the two-year pilot places ambassadors at Mifflin Square, Tacony Creek, Cobbs Creek and Fairmount parks with the goal of reducing illegal dumping
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In the year since Borski Park officially opened along the Delaware riverfront in Bridesburg, it has been home to an exciting slate of events, including a five-day beer pop-up hosted by Parks on Tap, a weekly “silver sneakers” exercise class designed for older adults, and a patriotic bicycle decorating contest celebrating July 4. But for
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When we went to print last month with “APOCALYPSE NOW” splashed across the cover in 138-point type above a raging Canadian wildfire, I wondered if people would think we were being alarmist. Little did I know that the cover would prove timely. It wasn’t just the smoky air from those Canadian fires haunting us. It
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We often think of nature as something untouched: a world apart from our city blocks and neighborhoods, where we go to escape the pace of daily life, take a walk, appreciate wildlife or simply find a moment of quiet. But the landscapes we cherish are rarely separate from us. In reality, behind every thriving park,
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Cheltenham Township’s 48-acre Curtis Arboretum certainly looks like an arboretum. The park’s southern edge is dominated by a lush forest of sycamore, maple and ash that gradually opens onto a series of rolling hills featuring more than 50 tree species. Despite its name and expansive tree catalogue, Curtis is officially designated as a township park,
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Along the sandy banks of the New Jersey Pine Barrens’ meandering streams, a small grasslike plant with clusters of white, star-shaped flowers bloomed unnoticed for millennia until botanist and Temple University professor Sasha Eisenman made a surprising discovery. This rare and endangered plant, previously unknown to science, is found nowhere else in the world but
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Driving through the Main Line’s older neighborhoods, you’ll find American beech trees towering above you, with smooth gray trunks, thin bark, and some with carved initials from decades past. Their broad canopies shade properties that have stood for a century or more. These slow-growing, long-lived trees are irreplaceable and central to the character of many
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Octavia Nash was back for more. She had joined a friend for a paddle on the Delaware River with Camden’s Center for Aquatic Sciences once before and returned for a free kayaking session at Pyne Poynt Park in mid-July, this time with her fiancée. “I like the peacefulness,” she says. “Oh my God, it’s like
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Iresha Picot wasn’t sure how many women would show up. It was the fifth day in a brutal stretch of summer heat, with Fourth of July fireworks having wrapped up just hours earlier. But by 10 a.m., 26 women had gathered at the Indego station at 33rd and Diamond streets for what has become their
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Maryland’s Department of Natural Resources is keeping an eye on Baltimore checkerspots. The once-common butterflies are in decline. They’re not rare enough to be endangered, but the state will be in a good position to step in if needed. In the Keystone State, no agency is tasked with ensuring their survival. The Pennsylvania Fish and
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