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#148 September 2021/Community/Design/education/Race and Equity/Sponsored Content

Youth program immerses a diverse group of teens in architecture and design

Sponsored Content

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September 2, 2021
2 mins read
#148 September 2021/All Topics/Circular Economy/Shop Local

Libraries for child gear and toys reduce in-home clutter and landfill waste

It’s a Tuesday morning in August, and women with young children are filing into Rutabaga Toy Library in East Falls, which is hosting a circle time for parents. The welcoming and well-lit space is a testament to the sharp eye that founder Krystal Cunillera developed in the 16 years she spent as a videographer. Like

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September 1, 2021
6 mins read
#147 August 2021/All Topics/Art/Culture

Ten years into his photoblog, Conrad Benner reflects on its genesis, evolution and future

Fishtown native Conrad Benner was in community college, working at a gelato shop in 2011 when he started capturing Philadelphia’s street art. Connecting his love of photography and writing, Benner began what is now Streets Dept, a full-grown photoblog and community news source that documents street art and artists. From WordPress to TikTok, Benner has

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August 27, 2021
6 mins read
#147 August 2021/All Topics/Race and Equity

Experts give advice on teaching young children about racism and how they can combat it

There’s not a moment to lose, according to Ben Sand, 40, author of the 2020 book “A Kids Book About White Privilege.” “By 2045 the majority of children born in the United States will be children of color,” says Sand, of Portland, Oregon, who reports receiving death threats for writing the book. “Today’s young people

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August 24, 2021
6 mins read
#147 August 2021/All Topics/Race and Equity

Hispanic organization marks 35 years investing in North Philly community

The reverend Luis Cortés jr., 62, gave the invocation prayer at Barack Obama’s 2013 Presidential Inauguration Luncheon, conferred with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi about not separating migrant families at the border and sipped tea with Prince Charles at Buckingham Palace. Yet wherever Cortés goes, his heart stays in El Barrio: the streets of North Philly’s

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August 22, 2021
4 mins read
#147 August 2021/Air/All Topics/Environment/Environmental Justice/Race and Equity/transportation

More warehouses are moving into Philly. Clean air advocates want officials to monitor the pollution

Four new warehouses are setting up camp in Philadelphia, and clean air activists are concerned about the pollution of their vehicles. The four new sites include an Amazon facility in Southwest, a redevelopment of the former Philadelphia Energy Solutions refinery in South Philly, a UPS site in the Northeast and a redevelopment of the Philadelphia

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August 19, 2021
4 mins read
#147 August 2021/All Topics/Environment/Urban Nature/Water

Pennsylvania and New Jersey have kill mandates on the invasive “Frankenfish”

I stood on the bank at the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge at Tinicum in June and cast my green frog top lure out into an open patch of water amid the weeds knowing somewhere in there swam northern snakeheads. Twenty years ago, they probably didn’t. The northern snakehead, or Channa argus, hails from East

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August 17, 2021
4 mins read
#147 August 2021/All Topics/Circular Economy

Philly’s plastic bag ban took effect in July. Here’s what it means for businesses and you

It’s finally here. After a one-year delay, Philadelphia finally implemented the long awaited plastic bag ban on July 1. By July 31, all businesses were required to post signage informing their clients of the ban. This gave stores time to use up any remaining plastic bags left in stock. And by October 1, businesses will

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August 15, 2021
3 mins read
#147 August 2021/All Topics/Environment/Urban Nature

The ballpark is the perfect place for fans of baseball, birds and bugs

I met up with my friend Robin Irizarry at the third base gate of Citizens Bank Park. We made it through security and strolled the first level. Like a lot of fans at the game, we were looking for something to eat. Unlike presumably everyone else, we were also looking for birds. I had been

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August 13, 2021
3 mins read
#147 August 2021/All Topics/Bicycling/Design/transportation

Mid-Atlantic Greenway representative talks to Grid about recent progress in our backyard

Imagine this: You’re at the northern tip of Maine. You’re on your bike. You can start riding now and stay on off-street, dedicated bike facilities for 3,000 miles, all the way to Key West, Florida. Your journey will take you through 25 major cities, 15 states and Washington, D.C. Someday, you won’t need to imagine

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August 11, 2021
3 mins read
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  1. Laura on A community air quality monitoring project keeps track of what industry (and neighbors) emit
  2. Peter on The efforts to eradicate traffic deaths in Philadelphia launched in 2016. Ten years in, the City is still far from its goal
  3. Jason Lubar on FDR Park’s renovation proceeds as lawsuit challenges its legality
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Every Friday afternoon from May to October, Alex C Every Friday afternoon from May to October, Alex Correia and George Murkowicz meet for lunch. Correia, a senior horticulturist at Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, and Murkowicz, executive chef at its on-site garden-to-table restaurant, 1906, taste-test dishes that result from the horticultural-culinary partnership at the center of it.

Correia, Murkowicz and volunteers work together, balancing dynamics such as flavor versus beauty, yield versus rarity and on-site planting versus farm-sourced ingredients. Today, 1906 is Philadelphia’s only full-service restaurant connected to an arboretum.

“George and Will [Brown, the culinary director] are both so excited about the garden and really committed to figuring out how to use what we’re growing,” says Correia. “They are connected to the space, coming out every week, seeing what’s growing and planning menus around that. I think that’s what has made all of the difference.”

➡️ Read the full story at gridphilly.com

✍️ Alisha Miranda
📸 Philippe LeSaux

#philadelphia #longwoodgardens #phillyfoodie #gardentotable #kitchengarden
On a balmy Friday afternoon in late February, the On a balmy Friday afternoon in late February, the teens who work at Fab Fits, Fab Youth Philly’s new youth-run thrift store, are waiting for their first customers of the day. A chirp through a walkie-talkie alerts staff member Brianna Valente, 18, to head downstairs to the building’s ground floor. She greets a pair of teenagers and leads them up the winding staircase to the third-floor space, which resembles a homey boutique. Then, she hands each girl a red tote bag, which they can fill with secondhand clothes from the store’s racks and take home, free of charge.

Fab Fits, which opened Feb. 12, offers teens from Kensington and across the city a place to shop for casual, everyday clothes as well as garments for special events like proms and job interviews. The inventory is sourced from donations by community members and partner organizations, says Rebecca Fabiano, executive director of Fab Youth Philly, and thus, it is constantly changing. Today, the prom dress room is especially well-stocked with pre-loved tulle and sequin gowns, but the growing crowd of shoppers are quickly clearing the casual racks of any pieces that could fit the Y2K aesthetic.

Fabiano says the idea for the store came from youth who had enjoyed the organization’s annual Fab Fashion Boutique, a promwear giveaway event first held in 2023 that expanded to workwear in 2024. Teens who had attended began requesting a permanent location to shop on a regular basis. Besides being a place for young people to get free clothing for the important (and often expensive) events in a teenager’s life, Fab Fits — and Fab Youth Philly as a whole — is also a space for youth to connect.

➡️ Read the full story at gridphilly.com

✍️ + 📸 Julia Lowe

#philadelphia #phillythrift #sustainablefashion #supportlocalbusinesses #shopphilly
Events happening in and around Philadelphia this w Events happening in and around Philadelphia this weekend!

➡️ Bells Mill Road Clean-Up for Earth Day and MLK Day: Join Friends of the Wissahickon in celebrating BOTH Earth Day and Martin Luther King Jr Day (after having to cancel our service day in January) with a special large-scale clean-up along Bells Mill Road! By removing litter along the roadway, we can prevent trash from washing into the creek during rainstorms and help protect habitat and stream health.

When:
Saturday, April 18 (9:00 AM - 12:00 PM)

Where:
Forbidden Drive and Bells Mill Rd. 
Philadelphia, PA 19118

➡️ Upper Merion Township’s 2026 Earth Day Festival: Free kid activities, green demos and vendors, food trucks, a beer garden, and more!

When:
Saturday, April 18 (11:00 AM - 2:00 PM)

Where:
Upper Merion Township Building Back Lot/Park
175 West Valley Forge Road
King of Prussia, PA 19406

➡️ Earth Appreciation Day – Plants and Poetry: Join Audubon Mid-Atlantic and Temple University at the Discovery Center as we work to maintain our habitats and conservation work for Earth Day! This site is home to over 170+ species of birds, many species of insects and mammals, and up to thousands of visitors per year. Our efforts can aid in the livelihood of these animals and stewardship for the people. We’ll focus on removing invasive bushes and plants around the trailhead so we can plant native shrubs in the future, as well as fill our seed packets for the public seed library.

Afterwards, we open our space to an open stage for those to come and share their voice and appreciation of our earth and community. This can be through poetry, stories and other types of offerings.

When:
Saturday, April 18 (1:00 PM - 4:00 PM)

Where:
The Discovery Center
3401 Reservoir Drive
Philadelphia, PA 19121

#philadelphia #philly #phillysupportphilly #eventsinphilly #phillyevents
The sound of percussion rang out at the Center Cit The sound of percussion rang out at the Center City headquarters of the School District of Philadelphia as the youth drumline Mad Beatz Philly opened a celebratory press conference in early March. The Black-led, parent-driven organization Lift Every Voice Philly (LEV) was celebrating a major victory: after 18 months of advocacy by parents across the city’s schools, the district passed its first comprehensive wellness policy to protect students’ basic needs.

Jamila Carter, a member of LEV, stood at a podium and called the victory “a long time coming,” as a group of children and parents stood behind her, clad in purple LEV shirts, cheering and waving pom-poms.

“We refused to accept schools where our children could not drink water freely, where daily movement and recess were denied, and where collective punishment and silent lunches were treated as normal,” Carter said. “I didn’t come to this work as a trained activist or organizer. I came to it as a mother.”

➡️ Read the full story at gridphilly.com

✍️ Gabriel Donahue

#philadelphia #phillyschools #education #studentrights #lifteveryvoice
As a parent of a 13-year-old and a 10-year-old who As a parent of a 13-year-old and a 10-year-old who play baseball in West Philly’s Philadelphia Athletics Youth Sports Association (PAYSA), I know firsthand how hard it can be to find space to play organized sports. The league has grown from 170 kids in 2014 to around 300 today, with a waiting list of 20. The demand keeps growing, but the field space remains the same.

On a typical night, my daughter shares practice time with two other teams. Three teams rotate across one proper baseball field and two “open space” areas where drills can be run. That means each team gets about 30 minutes per week of practice on an actual field. Adding to the field stress, our makeshift batting cage recently fell apart and is now unusable.

And yet, everyone associated with PAYSA would tell you how lucky we are.

➡️ Read the full note from our publisher at gridphilly.com

✍️ Alex Mulcahy

#philadelphia #youthsports #fieldsports #syntheticturf #urbangreenspace
Nature lovers, mark your calendars for Love Your P Nature lovers, mark your calendars for Love Your Park Week 2026.

One hundred forty park friends groups care for the city’s parks year-round and are calling for volunteers to join the cleanup and beautification days hosted from May 9-17.

“I think it’s a great way to be outside with the community,” says Catherine Lowther, president of Friends of Penn Treaty Park. “It doesn’t have to be our park … There’s so many to choose from.”

Love Your Park Week has been a staple, biannual event in the Philadelphia parks scene since its launch in 2012 by Fairmount Park Conservancy and Philadelphia Parks & Recreation.

Grid caught up with a few friends groups to find out how they’ll be celebrating their parks and how volunteers can join in on stewardship efforts at a park near them.

➡️ Read the full story at gridphilly.com

✍️ Julia Lowe and Gabriel Donahue
📸 Photo courtesy of Tacony Creek Park

#philadelphia #urbannature #urbangreenspace #phillyparks #parkcleanup
Events happening in and around Philadelphia this w Events happening in and around Philadelphia this weekend!

➡️ Electronics Recycling: Weavers Way Environment Committee is hosting their annual electronic recycling event at Chestnut Hill College. Anything that has a plug or can turn on can be recycled at this event.

When:
Saturday, April 11 (9:00 AM - 1:00 PM)

Where:
Chestnut Hill College
9601 Germantown Avenue
Philadelphia, PA 19118

➡️ Upcycling Workshop - Create Your Own Totebag: Get ready to turn old into new and design your very own totebag at this upcycling workshop! Don’t miss out on this opportunity to learn new skills and contribute to sustainability.

When:
Sunday, April 12 (12:00 PM - 4:00 PM)

Where:
5122 Springfield Avenue
Philadelphia, PA 19143

➡️ Climate Resilience Plan Community Workshop: Bartram’s Garden and ACANA are proud to host a community workshop in collaboration with the City of Philadelphia’s Office of Sustainability. Together, we’ve helped design a workshop that is specific to our neighborhood, grounded in local experiences, and centered on community voices.

This workshop will provide direct input to Philadelphia’s Citywide Climate Resilience Plan, which is focused on developing strategies at different scales — citywide and neighborhood-level solutions — to prepare for extreme heat, flooding, storms, power outages, and other climate impacts.

When:
Sunday, April 12 (2:00 PM - 5:00 PM)

Where:
Coach House
5400 Lindbergh Boulevard
Philadelphia, PA 19143

#philadelphia #philly #phillysupportphilly #eventsinphilly #phillyevents
When entering Cobbs Creek Park at Florence Avenue When entering Cobbs Creek Park at Florence Avenue and Cobbs Creek Parkway, a mural on the sidewalk asks, “How far can you hop?” On an adjacent wooden display, a spinning wheel lists actions inspired by reptiles and amphibians in the creek — slither, crawl, jump — and challenges the player to cross a series of tree stumps using those motions.

The pair is one of four Little Nature Playgrounds, built to welcome visitors to the nearly four-mile Cobbs Creek Trail at safe intersections. Each is inspired by different nature elements found within the 851-acre park, which constitutes much of Philadelphia’s West and Southwest border.

“There’s not a whole lot of entrances where you can cross from the residential side of the street to the park side of the street, and as you go further south on the Parkway, it gets worse,” says Monica Allison, co-founder of the community group Cobbs Creek Neighbors, which brought the idea to Clean Air Council to create the miniature playgrounds.

Cobbs Creek was considered a high-priority neighborhood for more and higher-quality playsites in a 2023 study of Philadelphia, where nearly a third of census-designated neighborhoods were found to have limited access to playsites. Cobbs Creek’s high-priority status led to the funding of the Little Nature Playgrounds project, also called Art in the Park.

➡️ Read the full story at gridphilly.com

✍️ Gabriel Donahue
📸 Photo courtesy of Clean Air Council

#philadelphia #urbannature #phillyparks #cobbscreek #parksforall
If not for the COVID-19 pandemic, the plan to reno If not for the COVID-19 pandemic, the plan to renovate Franklin Delano Roosevelt Park in South Philadelphia might have proceeded without significant opposition. Workplace lockdowns and virtual schooling drove people outdoors to get some exercise and socialize in the fresh air. In South Philadelphia, many of them found the park’s shuttered golf course and fell in love with the landscape of meadows, picturesque trees and marshy water features, calling it the “South Philly Meadows.”

“To my delight, I discovered we have wilderness coming back in South Philly, a 10-minute bike ride from my house,” says Rich Garella, who lives in South Philadelphia and has been visiting FDR Park since he was a child.

Fans such as Garella and Anisa George were horrified to learn that the Meadows were mostly doomed. The park’s master plan called for parts of the Meadows to be excavated to create wetlands. Other sections would be filled and graded to create 16 playing fields, surfaced with synthetic turf and doubling as stormwater buffers, with storage tanks built underneath. All the trees in the way would be felled. Fans of the abandoned golf course formed a group called Save the Meadows to advocate for the space.

Garella, George and eight others filed a lawsuit in Philadelphia Orphans’ Court on March 25, 2024, to force the City to stop the renovation and restore the park to its pre-renovation state. “The overall thing is we want to stop the bleeding,” says George. “We don’t want any more trees to be cut. We don’t want toxic turf, and we want a pause in the plan. We’d like a better plan.”

➡️ Read the full story at gridphilly.com

✍️ Bernard Brown
📸 Tracie Van Auken

#philadelphia #urbannature #phillyparks #fdrpark #saveourparks
April is here and with it comes another issue of G April is here and with it comes another issue of Grid! Here are just a few of the stories you’ll find in issue 203:

• FDR Park’s renovation proceeds as lawsuit challenges its legality

• Park advocates aim to make Cobbs Creek more appealing and accessible to neighbor

• Love Your Park Week returns with citywide volunteer opportunities

➡️ Read the new issue now at gridphilly.com

📸 Cover photos by Gabriel Donahue, Chris Baker Evens, and Tracie Van Auken

#philadelphia #phillynews #sustainability #environmentalnews #independentjournalism
In the late 18th century, the French chemist Antoi In the late 18th century, the French chemist Antoine Lavoisier radically changed how we understand the physical world. He was perplexed by the fact that when metal rusted, despite becoming more brittle, it actually gained weight rather than losing it. Why would metal weigh more when it was decomposing?

It weighed more, Lavoisier came to understand, because the metal was absorbing a then-unknown element: oxygen.

This led to his publishing in the 1789 book “Traité Élémentaire de Chimie” the law of conservation of mass, which states that during a chemical reaction, matter can be neither created nor destroyed. The burning log in your campfire that seems to have disappeared has merely been transformed into ash, water vapor and carbon dioxide.

Matter, alas, doesn’t disappear when we throw trash in the garbage, either. We say “throwing it away” but the age-old sustainability question remains: Where is “away?” The reality is that we are just throwing it.

➡️ Read the full note from our publisher at gridphilly.com

✍️ Alex Mulcahy

#philadelphia #sustainability #sustainabilitymatters #wastemanagement #airqualitytesting
The air in the Delaware Valley’s industrial corrid The air in the Delaware Valley’s industrial corridor doesn’t always smell nice. Major odor events assaulted the noses of Delaware County residents in 2019, 2020 and, most recently, last fall. During the 2019 event, Clean Air Council director of programs Eve Miari tried to check air quality readings from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection monitoring equipment in Marcus Hook. “When we went to access the data, it missed it by two hours,” she says. The monitor worked by capturing air in canisters at intervals, and whatever had caused the odor had leaked out between samplings. In early 2025, Clean Air Council launched an EPA-funded network of air quality monitors to ensure that no leak would go undocumented again.

The network stretches from Southwest Philadelphia through southern Delaware County, along an industrial corridor that dates back centuries. “Pretty much the entire waterfront is industry,” Miari says.

Miari and Clean Air Council’s Russell Zerbo rattle off a list of industrial facilities along the stretch, including the power plant in Eddystone, the Monroe Refinery in Marcus Hook and the Reworld (formerly Covanta) trash-burning power plant and Kimberly Clark paper mill in Chester. Additionally, highways intersect at multiple points (I-76, I-95, I-476), bringing tailpipe emissions from millions of cars and trucks into the surrounding communities. “We have more bad air quality days than good. These frontline communities are bearing the brunt of the impact,” Miari says.

➡️ Read the full story at gridphilly.com

✍️ Bernard Brown
📸 Chris Baker Evens

#philadelphia #pollution #cleanairmatters #airquality #airqualitytesting
Germantown Kitchen Garden’s farmer, Amanda Staples Germantown Kitchen Garden’s farmer, Amanda Staples, who hails from Upper Darby, did not grow up on a farm. Although her grandparents operated a Christmas tree farm near Clarks Summit, Lackawanna County, Staples’ initial hands-on contact with farming was growing lima beans in her backyard for an elementary school assignment.

After graduating from Temple University with a degree in religion, Staples moved to Kensington, where she first encountered community gardens popping up on vacant lots. A friend invited her to help at a community garden in Camden, and that experience inspired Staples to mobilize volunteers and build a garden near her Kensington home. She nurtured the garden while earning money from customer service jobs at Philadelphia International Airport, Wawa and the Franklin Institute. Eventually, Staples committed to an internship at Scarecrow Hill Farm in Lancaster County. “Everything you did there was about farming. It was by far the most intensive learning experience,” she recalls. Her aspirations to become a production farmer started taking shape.

Buying a half-acre plot in Kensington proved impossible. Then something unexpected happened. An acquaintance was purchasing a home in Germantown, but the seller made the deal contingent on buying the adjacent parcel. It was a forest of neglect, so overgrown it was impenetrable. But it was affordable and available. Staples and her husband bought it in 2008. “It didn’t feel that risky,” she says. “It felt crazy, but not risky.”

Founded on her conviction that farms should exist in cities, Staples began to build Germantown Kitchen Garden as the “hybrid homestead and tiny business” she envisioned.

➡️ Read the full story at gridphilly.com

✍️ Marilyn Anthony
📸 Kristen Harrison

#philadelphia #communitygarden #urbanfarm #growyourownfood #homegrowntomatoes
A 1970s-era stereo receiver. Red leather boots. Ni A 1970s-era stereo receiver. Red leather boots. Nine fully intact eggplants.

These are just a few of the unexpected objects the Cobbs Creek Ambassadors have come across while cleaning up Cobbs Creek Park in West Philadelphia.

But most of what they pick up is just typical litter: bottles, cans, food wrappers, old tires. And the volunteers behind this grassroots organization have picked up tons of it — an average of about 9.5 tons of trash each year, in fact — since starting up in 2018.

Cobbs Creek Ambassadors was co-founded by Rich Guffanti and Andrew Wheeler, acquaintances who first volunteered together building a wall in the Spruce Hill Bird Sanctuary. They enjoyed each other’s company and volunteered again as a duo to clear gutter leaves along Cobbs Creek Park between Catherine and Christian streets. This effort became a regular meet-up.

➡️ Read the full story at gridphilly.com

✍️ Emily Kovach
📸 Tracie Van Auken

#philadelphia #urbannature #parkcleanup #phillyparks #cobbscreek
Last year I wrote a series of columns in Grid abou Last year I wrote a series of columns in Grid about several ways the City of Philadelphia could expand composting. While I have had some productive conversations with City officials over the last year, I have seen no indication that they are prepared to begin any large scale residential composting pilot program in the near future. But that doesn’t mean we should throw up our hands and give up. Composting is something an individual can do to reduce their carbon impact. And while a paid composting service, like the one provided by Bennett Compost, works for some, it doesn’t meet everyone’s needs.

That is why we want to make sure we are educating people about the benefits of composting. In the coming months, while we wait for the City to incorporate composting into the municipal waste services I will lay out some practical ways people can set up their own composting systems.

So what do you need to compost the right way?

➡️ Read the full story at gridphilly.com

✍️ Tim Bennett
📸 Photo courtesy of Delpixart

#philadelphia #compost #composting #foodwaste #zerowaste
Events happening in and around Philadelphia this w Events happening in and around Philadelphia this weekend!

➡️ Pennypack Creek and Park Cleanup: Join us for a morning of community action followed by an afternoon of celebration! We’re coming together to make our park and creek cleaner and more welcoming for everyone. Whether you’re a longtime neighbor, a first-time volunteer, or bringing the whole family, this event is for anyone who wants to make a positive impact on our shared green spaces.

When:
Saturday, March 21st (10:00 AM - 11:30 AM)

Where:
Pennypack on the Delaware Park
7801 State Road
Philadelphia, PA 19136

➡️ A DEEPLY ROOTED TROLLEY TOUR BY HARRIETTS BOOKSHOP: Welcome to A DEEPLY ROOTED TROLLEY TOUR by Harriett’s Bookshop! A DEEPLY ROOTED Trolley Tour is our three hour, hop on-hop off tour that celebrates local culture, history, music, and deeply rooted tradition by visiting new and seasoned spaces throughout Philadelphia.

When:
Saturday, March 21st (3:00 PM - 5:30 PM)

Where:
Harriett’s Bookshop
258 East Girard Avenue
Philadelphia, PA 19125

➡️ Dyeing with Plants Spring Workshop: Learn to make colorful dyes for your next fabric- or egg-dyeing project from common plants you can find during your next hike or trip to the grocery store! Design and dye one yard of fabric using the batik technique and natural dyes. If you finish early, try your new skills on smaller, egg canvases.

When:
Sunday, March 22nd (1:00 PM - 2:30 PM)

Where:
Tyler Arboretum
515 Painter Road
Media, PA 19063

#philadelphia #philly #phillysupportphilly #eventsinphilly #phillyevents
Opening with subterranean footage of the foam cups Opening with subterranean footage of the foam cups, plastic bottles and sodden cardboard that decorate the sewer inlets underneath Philadelphia, filmmaker Melissa Langer’s 2025 documentary, “In Excess,” probes into the unseen places where the city’s litter ends up. Spoiler alert: When it comes to the city’s trash, there is no throwing it “away.”

“Every object we discard lives on somewhere else, disturbing someone else’s environment, forever,” says Langer. Langer, who moved to Philadelphia in 2017, immediately noticed disproportionate amounts of litter and illegal dumping in Northeast Philly and began exploring what the City was doing about it.

The product is her 70-minute feature, which weaves haunting stretches of trash footage with candid vignettes of the people tasked with cleaning it up, from Philadelphia Water Department (PWD) sewer inlet crews to a small Streets Department team that monitors hundreds of security cameras for illegal dumping.

➡️ Read the full story at gridphilly.com

✍️ Julia Lowe
📸 Melissa Langer

#philadelphia #waste #wastemanagement #wastedisposal #illegaldumping #litter
Hanna Kahler lives in West Philadelphia and rides Hanna Kahler lives in West Philadelphia and rides her blue commuter bicycle to work in the Graduate Hospital neighborhood, a trip she says takes 18 minutes via the Schuylkill River Trail and parking-protected bike lanes on Walnut and Chestnut streets.

When she spoke to Grid on Feb. 12, more than two weeks after the last snowflakes of the Jan. 25 winter storm fell, she was still unable to ride to work. She could take SEPTA’s 40 bus. “If it works well, it takes 40 minutes, but it hasn’t been working well,” she says. Mostly she’s been walking, which takes 47 minutes. “The City has completely dropped the ball on maintaining the bike lanes,” Kahler says.

The snow that fell directly onto the bike lanes and that the City did not clear wasn’t the only challenge. “Ignoring it is bad enough, but they’ve shoved piles of snow into the bike lanes,” Kahler says, referring to heaps — some as big as an SUV — that City workers clearing the roads had plowed into the bike lanes at intersections.

➡️ Read the full story at gridphilly.com

✍️ Bernard Brown
📸 Tracie Van Auken

#philadelphia #bikelane #safestreets #bikesafety #bicyclesafety #bikephl
At 11 a.m. on Valentine’s Day, Aspen Simone stood At 11 a.m. on Valentine’s Day, Aspen Simone stood on the corner of 7th and Christian streets in South Philadelphia holding a long dowel with a laminated, cutout pigeon on the end.

That wasn’t just any pigeon on the end of Simone’s walk leader staff. Primrose the pigeon is how the whole pigeon education enterprise began. Simone’s partner Hannah Michelle Brower took Primrose — at that point a weak, malnourished fledgling found by a neighbor on the sidewalk — to a pigeon rescuer who nursed the young bird back to health. Simone says the rescuer told them the recuperating pigeon, whom Brower had taken to calling Primrose, would do better as a pet rather than being released into the wild, and so the couple kept her.

“We just started learning more about her as an individual,” Simone says. “And then we started learning more about pigeon biology and behavior generally. One day, we realized we could predict what pigeons were about to do based on subtle cues that we can read now.” In the summer of 2025, the couple launched their pigeon tours, priced at $25, to share what they had learned.

➡️ Read the full story at gridphilly.com

✍️ Bernard Brown
📸 Troy Bynum

#philadelphia #birding #birdwatching #pigeonlove #dovelove #urbanwildlife
The overgrown lot at 5308 Parrish St. in the Haddi The overgrown lot at 5308 Parrish St. in the Haddington neighborhood of West Philadelphia is getting back to its roots. After sitting abandoned, accumulating trash, construction debris and dumped car parts for over a decade, a new project is in progress to restore the space to a new iteration of its past life as a neat, blooming garden.

Nathan McWilliams, however, who has been pruning back invasive species like mulberry and tree of heaven since September, believes it is already an oasis.

“It has so much potential. And I just want to bring that garden back to its glory,” says McWilliams, owner and lead consultant at Tree In Me, LLC.

➡️ Read the full story at gridphilly.com

✍️ Julia Lowe
📸 Photo courtesy of Nathan McWilliams

#philadelphia #communitygarden #gardencare #gardenmaintenance #urbangreenspace #urbannature
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