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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The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) published a notice on September 3 in the Pennsylvania Register that it has approved the environmental assessment and the restoration plans for the Cobbs Creek golf courses — nine months after the Cobbs Creek Foundation began work on the project. Specifically, the approval is for the restoration of
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The canopy of red oaks, sugar maples and tulip trees provided a respite from the 94-degree heat on a July visit to the Boy Scout Tract. The cooling provided by the trees was a reminder of the importance of preserving tree canopy as global warming raises the temperatures in Philadelphia. The calls of blue jays,
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The destruction of the South Philly Meadows has begun, and, according to witnesses, not in a safe way. As of the morning of Tuesday, August 24, there was no fencing securing the land while trees upwards of 50 feet were being felled close to park users. “As I walked through the Meadows I noticed a
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Fourteen years ago, I began stewarding portions of land in the Upper Roxborough neighborhood of Philadelphia. At the outset, it was a mere 2,400 square feet in the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education (SCEE) organic community garden plots. I worked shoulder to shoulder with SCEE staff and fellow gardeners to clear invaders from fence lines
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On Thursday, June 30, 2022, the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education’s plans to sell a 24-acre parcel of land called the Boy Scout Tract met with sharp questions and numerous objections from neighbors at a public virtual meeting of two local civic associations, the Upper Roxborough Civic Association and the Residents of Shawmont Valley Association.
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About 80 acres in the Somerton neighborhood of Northeast Philadelphia have been conspicuously left out of Philadelphia City Councilmember Katherine Gilmore Richardson’s legislation to improve the city’s tree canopy protections, which passed City Council on June 16, 2022. The Somerton Civic Association is lobbying to change that. Northeast Avenue comes to a tree-shaded end in
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Philadelphia parks advocates are celebrating an increase in Philadelphia Parks & Recreation funding, $4.99 million above what Mayor Jim Kenney had requested for fiscal year 2023. Philadelphia’s park system has been chronically underfunded for decades, and as City Council worked on a budget deal for 2023, advocate groups such as the Philadelphia Parks Alliance have
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On march 19, 2019, Mom, the red-tailed hawk matriarch of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, disappeared. A post by Carolyn Sutton on the Franklin Hawkaholics Facebook page described how, over the previous weekend, Mom had been looking unwell, sitting listlessly on a branch and showing no interest in a dead rat delivered by her mate, T4
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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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The Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education reported on its blog that two local civic associations, the Upper Roxborough Civic Association and the Residents of the Shawmont Valley, met last week to discuss news of a possible sale of the Boy Scout Tract, a section of the Schuylkill Center’s property. The Boy Scout Tract is a
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