Last week we started an unconventional photo contest of sorts where instead of accepting submissions or captions, our resident photographer and excellent intern Masashi Hanada takes the photos and we ask you to identify the object and put it in its geographic and, if possible, symbolic and historic context. The response was great and we [...]

Well, it’s Friday which means it is time to reveal the answers to Week 1 of what we hope will be an ongoing test of how well you pay attention to your surroundings as you traipse around our fair city.  Back on Monday we put up 3 close-up photos of what we’ll generically call “interesting [...]

Over at It’s Our Money, they’re celebrating “pension week,” which, while not quite as exciting as “Shark Week” is still important when it comes to learning how to fend off ravenous eating machines with a sense of entitlement over their realms. In Ben Waxman’s latest post, he takes on the unenviable task of explaining, [...]

Several weeks back I was doing a training walk to prepare for the Breast Cancer 3-Day walk when I came upon one of the many out-of-the-way parks that dot the landscape of this city and that seem to spring up like beautiful, tree-lined oases in an otherwise barren, urban desert. In this park was a [...]

Just got an email from the Williams campaign that the Commonwealth Court overturned Judge Tereshko’s ruling that removed him from the primary ballot. YPP, unofficial home of the Seth Williams fan club, has a link to the 1-page decision. The decision indicates that the judge’s opinion will follow.
Williams’ email makes no mention of his campaign [...]

Like her or not, you can’t argue that District Attorney Lynne Abraham has one thing in spades - staying power. If Philadelphia were the setting for Law and Order, she would definitely be Sam Waterston, which I guess would make Ron Castille Michael Moriarty (or better yet, David Caruso, another person who left a successful [...]

It’s the end of the first week of April and all eyes turn to (drum roll)… the Monthly City of Philadelphia Tax Revenue Update! (.PDF brought to you by the good folks at the Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority or PICA.)
Let’s go to the numbers and, using our own understanding of these numbers, translate what they [...]

I’m loving this new recurring feature about urban cycling at the NYT’s City Room, known as Spokes. In this post, SPOKESwriter David Goodman discusses a subject near and dear to my heart - bike theft.

I was going to write a little about a recent column by Inquirer architecture critic Inga Saffron in which the scourge of design-challenged developers takes on a Queen Village Neighbors Association decision to allow a couple of homes to be built with (gasp!) street-level, front-facing garages!
But that seems like pretty small potatoes compared to the [...]

Greg Heller at Urban Direction points out that the Canadians appear to have a little crush on the City of Brotherly Love.
So don’t worry, Philadelphia. Even though a riverfront casino with a 3,000-space parking garage is now on schedule to open within a year (more on that later, I’m sure), we can take comfort in [...]