A keen observer can sometimes hear a “boom” over the row houses on summer evenings in Philadelphia. The sound marks a male common nighthawk defending his territory, flexing his wings as he dives. The insect-eating birds nest on flat, gravelly surfaces. These can be bare patches of ground in a forest, but they can also
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For thousands of years, people used organic materials like plants, insects and minerals to create dyes. But in 1856, an 18-year-old chemistry student named William Henry Perkin changed everything. While attempting to create synthetic quinine using coal tar, Perkin accidentally developed mauveine, the world’s first synthetic dye. His invention of the rich purple hue unlocked
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Philly AIDS Thrift has all kinds of patrons: teachers, tourists, college students and on occasion, celebrities like singer Miley Cyrus and Eagles players. As manager and longtime employee Adam Proctor puts it, the nonprofit thrift store attracts “every kind of person ever.” Located at 710 South 5th Street, Philly AIDS Thrift has an eclectic, artsy
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I just bought a sweater. After reading “Worn: A People’s History of Clothing,” by Sofi Thanhauser (interviewed in this issue), I went online and found a second-hand gray wool henley originally sold by a company with a reputation for well-made clothing. I wanted something I could wear this winter and for many winters to come;
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When Moth Snow was in college, they would spend afternoons scouring thrift stores for discarded sartorial gems. Perusing the racks, they’d perform a kind of tactile divination, feeling the hem of a sweater or collar of a blouse, then guessing its fiber content. Was it cotton? Wool? A polyester blend? Their fingertips would seek answers,
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Do you know what it’s made of? Where it came from? Who stitched it together? Go ahead and cheat. Check the label. That will get you part of the way there: a list of materials and a country, but much of the story will remain a mystery. That little tag won’t tell you about the
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Over the course of a decade, Shireen Qadri learned the intricacies of Indian cooking from her mom, Safia. But when she started a family, she found that preparing the cuisine was too elaborate for everyday meals. Her mom had a solution: when Qadri and her husband, J.D. Walsh, visited Safia in Maryland, she would send
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Nestled into the vast urban sprawl of Northeast Philadelphia sits the 1,600-acre historic green oasis known as Pennypack Park. Take a walk through the komorebi — the Japanese word for the dappled light created by sunshine filtering through trees — and you will find a hillside nook enclosed by deer fencing and tall tulip poplar
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If you met Josh Johnson four years ago, you might not have guessed that the corporate consultant and industrial engineer would someday be cooking pots of gourmet custard, tabling at events and delivering jars to food co-ops and markets. But then COVID-19 happened, taking his aunt. “She got diagnosed on a Monday and she was
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