The morning after Hurricane Ida devastated Manayunk in September 2021, John Hunter stood looking over the intersection of Main Street and Shurs Lane, watching floodwaters carry away the back deck of the former Mad River building. “As the waters were flying by, it got to the point where this bar became detached from its foundations
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Estere Alveno-Marius remembers the first time she tasted comparette (also known as konparèt), the sweetly spiced gingerbread-like treat that originated in Jérémie, the capital of Haiti’s Grand’Anse region. A friend visiting Alveno-Marius in her hometown of Saint-Louis-du-Sud brought the pastry as a gift. One taste and Alveno-Marius understood how the fragrant coconut sweet bun got
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A version of this story originally appeared in Hidden City in 2024 and is shared courtesy of that publication. For nearly two centuries, humans and Mother Nature have tangoed on League Island, the most southeasterly expanse of land in Philadelphia, known today as the Navy Yard. For the most part, humans have gotten the better
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On a typical Monday at Fishtown Pickle Project, cucumbers are everywhere: being rinsed, flying through the spear cutter—affectionately named Britney Spears—and getting stuffed into jars with garlic and seasonings. The aroma of vinegar wafts down the hallways of their manufacturing center in the Globe Dye Works building in Frankford, where the staff processes roughly 3,000
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When Grid was planning a home electrification guide for the January 2025 issue, the universe threw us a curveball. Donald Trump’s reelection cast doubt on the longevity of federal financial incentives for homeowners across the country to purchase solar panels, electric stoves, heat pump HVAC units and other climate-friendly technologies. So our guide, which walks
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Jason Weckstein cranks open one lane of the massive movable storage unit holding one of the world’s 10 largest collections of birds, revealing stacks of long drawers, each filled with rows of still, silent birds. The ornithology research lab at Drexel University’s Academy of Natural Sciences (ANS) is home to more than 200,000 of these
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My daughter and I wended our way through the streets of our West Philly neighborhood, shunted block after block by fire department barricades. We were heading from a playground, where we had started the morning, to the supermarket, but there was a burning vacant apartment building in the way. As we followed the downwind side
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George Lakey has seen his fair share of grim political moments. He has, after all, spent nearly seven decades fighting for civil rights, peace and environmental justice. At 87, Lakey recognizes that now is another one of those moments. But his own personal experience as an activist and his research as a scholar of political
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My first four columns covered different ways to collect food waste from residents. But collection is only the start. Once food scraps are collected, they need to be composted. This is where it gets tricky. We don’t currently have enough permitted composting facilities in the region to handle all of the food scraps. So what
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Philadelphia’s park system is many things. It is big, but much of it is difficult to access. Some sections are practically ancient, home to historic buildings hundreds of years old; one even dates back to New Sweden. At the same time, the system is constantly being renovated. If you’re lucky, you might have a new
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