As a parent of a 13-year-old and a 10-year-old who play baseball in West Philly’s Philadelphia Athletics Youth Sports Association (PAYSA), I know firsthand how hard it can be to find space to play organized sports. The league has grown from 170 kids in 2014 to around 300 today, with a waiting list of 20.
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By Julia Lowe and Gabriel Donahue Nature lovers, mark your calendars for Love Your Park Week 2026. One hundred forty park friends groups care for the city’s parks year-round and are calling for volunteers to join the cleanup and beautification days hosted from May 9-17. “I think it’s a great way to be outside with
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If not for the COVID-19 pandemic, the plan to renovate Franklin Delano Roosevelt Park in South Philadelphia might have proceeded without significant opposition. Workplace lockdowns and virtual schooling drove people outdoors to get some exercise and socialize in the fresh air. In South Philadelphia, many of them found the park’s shuttered golf course and fell
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I would need to book a flight to Portland, Oregon, to see shad runs like Philadelphians once did. That might surprise Delaware Valley residents accustomed to hearing how scarce the once-abundant fish are. But while shad have long suffered in their home range, they have flourished out West. The sleek silver herring is a celebrity
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When entering Cobbs Creek Park at Florence Avenue and Cobbs Creek Parkway, a mural on the sidewalk asks, “How far can you hop?” On an adjacent wooden display, a spinning wheel lists actions inspired by reptiles and amphibians in the creek — slither, crawl, jump — and challenges the player to cross a series of
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A 1970s-era stereo receiver. Red leather boots. Nine fully intact eggplants. These are just a few of the unexpected objects the Cobbs Creek Ambassadors have come across while cleaning up Cobbs Creek Park in West Philadelphia. But most of what they pick up is just typical litter: bottles, cans, food wrappers, old tires. And the
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At 11 a.m. on Valentine’s Day, Aspen Simone stood on the corner of 7th and Christian streets in South Philadelphia holding a long dowel with a laminated, cutout pigeon on the end. That wasn’t just any pigeon on the end of Simone’s walk leader staff. Primrose the pigeon is how the whole pigeon education enterprise
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Will you find yourself alone again for Valentine’s Day? It can be hard to find the right someone, but you’re not alone. Female oriental cockroaches can also have a hard time finding a mate. But when one gives up on finding a male to settle down with, she moves on to plan B: The female
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Deep inside Fairmount Park, some hardworking dreamers are changing the way Philadelphia treats, uses and benefits from trees that historically would have been thrown in a dump. The Philadelphia Reforestation Hub, found within the park’s Organic Recycling Center (ORC), is focused on integrated wood waste diversion. Part of its approach to urban forestry management, the
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The Fairmount Park Conservancy, Philadelphia’s largest parks-focused nonprofit, has tread perilous ground over the past several years as it leads one of the largest open space transformations in the city’s recent history: a $250 million overhaul of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) Park in South Philadelphia. The conservancy has caught flak from some community and advocacy
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