Most mornings, Victoria Miles-Chambliss walks down the street from her home in Kingsessing to the Cecil Street Community Garden to drink a cup of coffee. Among the newly-planted native trees and echinacea plants, she sees something that was once a rare sight in her neighborhood: birds. “Our block has really changed since we put in
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Bekah Carminati spent her childhood making mud pies and inspecting insects in her backyard in Montgomery County. When she grew up, she took up landscaping as a way to channel her love for craft and nature. But there was a problem. The company she worked for insisted on applying black dyed mulch, planting annuals and
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In mid-February, Grid requested an interview with Carlton Williams, the newly announced head of Mayor Cherelle Parker’s flagship “Clean and Green” initiative. After receiving no reply, we repeated the request a few weeks later. This time a communications official acknowledged the email, but that’s it so far. Fortunately, we’ve got other source material to examine:
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From April 26 to April 29, Philadelphia and its adjacent counties will be competing against cities around the world to recruit the greatest number of people to find the most species in their regions. Using the iNaturalist app as a tool, the City Nature Challenge encourages us to explore and document the biodiversity right where
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Carla Robinson is the editor of the Chestnut Hill Local. This story was produced in partnership with the Chestnut Hill Local. Kyle Bagenstose contributed to this report. Rev. Chester Williams has been dealing with floods in his basement since the fall of 1969, when he returned from service in Vietnam and bought his house in
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It would be nice to imagine that all the clothes in our closets and dressers — let alone the endless items lining the shelves of countless retail shops — spring forth fully formed. Or, if that fantasy goes too far, to at least believe that our clothing is manufactured with some level of respect for
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Within minutes of stepping onto McGee Island off the coast of Maine for a writing residency, I learned through a phone call that my son, Manuel, my only child, had died. Dogged by alcohol, cough syrup, schizophrenia and half-cured pneumonia — he left the hospital against medical advice — he succumbed in his room at
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The Big Favorite wants to redirect our worn out panties, briefs and bras into the zero-waste economy — but there’s a catch. Used polyester-infused underwear is not currently suitable for recycling. With no place left to go but the trash can, undies join the estimated 11 million pounds of textiles dumped in landfills yearly. In
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On the fourth floor of the Bok Building, a handful of students are gathered in the airy, white-walled workshop space at Weaver House. Each person sits at their own floor loom, a large and elegantly complex machine constructed from blonde wood, strung across with fibers. The mood in the room is one of concentration, each
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