The husband-and-wife founders and owners of Urban Essence, Theresa P. Minor and Timothy L. Minor, know firsthand how spa and body care treatments can rejuvenate the skin and the soul. In 2003 Theresa was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. An IT professional, Theresa didn’t know if she was going to be able to continue working in
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In 1835, future circus magnate P. T. Barnum and an enslaved Black woman he bought for $1,000 bamboozled the public, according to the impresario’s 1855 autobiography and Mark Bramble’s 1980 musical “Barnum.” Barnum, living in New York, heard that the woman, Joice Heth, on exhibit in Philadelphia, claimed to be the 161-year-old former nursemaid of
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PART ONE Virginia, June 1837 1 Alsie Stone’s breasts leaked milk from the moment of her escape. Over hard miles, her milk painted stripes of terror down the front of her heavy tow-cloth blouse. The stitch in her side grew teeth. She tripped in the darkness, fell on her face, and jounced the baby in
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Don’t give up on Philadelphia just yet. Our centuries-old city has big problems, including the legacy of lead. It’s in our paint, our pipes, our bloodstreams. When it gets in our children, it hurts their young brains’ development, negatively affecting learning and behavior. With the district-wide installation of hydration stations — filtering units that remove
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Philadelphia has the nickname of “Filthadelphia,” and Cedar Avenue block captain Stephen Carb, 60, understands why. While many blocks benefit from the oversight of a block captain to organize cleanups, not every block gets the attention it deserves. According to its website, the Philadelphia More Beautiful Committee (PMBC) works with block captains to organize block
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Dwayne Wharton was tasked with helping to solve one health care crisis affecting kids when he discovered another. Wharton was working for The Food Trust in the mid-2010s, and that organization’s goal was to reduce the number of sugary beverages, especially soda, kids were drinking. They encouraged students to drink more water from the ubiquitous
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I would be lying if I said I’d never snuck in anywhere I wasn’t supposed to. I have gone herping (recreationally searching for reptiles and amphibians) all over Philadelphia, and more than once I have taken a look at a “No Trespassing” sign, glanced over my shoulder to see if anyone was watching and pressed
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In 2011, an enraged 12-year-old stormed into the office at a charter school and marched up to Edwena Lanier, the office manager at the time and founder and leader of Girls Talk, a forum for girls aged 10 to 19. “She was furious because she’d gotten a D on an English paper,” says Lanier, 38,
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Glass is 100% recyclable: it can be melted over and over again to form new glass products without any loss in quality. Most of it is not recycled, however, despite the fact that the planet is running out of the sand necessary to make glass and other products. The opportunity for glass recycling, therefore, is
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After tragedy struck Rajus Korde’s family in 2018, he had two revelations. The first was to find more meaning and purpose in his career. The second was that his family’s food was both an expression of love in times of joy and grief. “Food played this role, particularly around joy and celebration, for the majority
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