Circling Back To The Ross Loopholes
Garage-front houses are going up across from the Betsy Ross House because the developers of the houses exploited a trifecta of loopholes in the regulatory system. Following up on an earlier report,...
View ArticleClass Warfare On Arch Street
Nathaniel Popkin takes a look at three new Old City row houses under construction that disrespect the city, the site, and the famous woman mythologized across the street
View ArticleHow Spruce Street Harbor Park Succeeds
In a city of squandered opportunities, here's an intervention that transforms the way we interact with space--and the city. Nathaniel Popkin reviews the new Spruce Street Harbor Park, opening tomorrow
View ArticleHow Can You Know What It Means To Be Here
What explains the power of place, of Fairmount Park especially, to give meaning to our lives? Nathaniel Popkin on three writers drawn to the park, including the great poet Stephen Berg, who died 12...
View ArticleOn Revolution Museum, Readers Have Spoken
Signees of the "Declaration of Architectural Independence" had a lot to say about the proposed design for the Museum
View ArticlePVM, RIP
Few could dream the possible city as well as Paul vanMeter, the landscape gardener and founder of ViaductGreene, who died suddenly Thursday. Nathaniel Popkin's tribute
View ArticleA Story In Letters
A chance realization leads to this meditation on neighborhood change by Nathaniel Popkin
View ArticleInside A Stone Castle, They Wish To Throw Up More Bricks
Mother Bethel and Society Hill Civic Association protest a proposed new development for "not fitting in." Nathaniel Popkin wonders if this isn't a double standard
View ArticleYour Lines, Imagined
We all dream of subway lines, says Nathaniel Popkin. Tell us yours
View ArticlePainfully Ugly, But Does It Matter?
Everyone knows the city's new hotel, a Home2 Suites at 12th and Arch, is an architectural mess. Do other factors make up for it? Nathaniel Popkin explores the corporate mindset (and gets kicked out of...
View ArticleDreamtime In The Possible City
With the weather changing as it was last night, Nathaniel Popkin finds himself traveling--much farther than the confines of Center City
View ArticleGlimpses Of The Holy Land
A traveler can only gather fleeting impressions, says Nathaniel Popkin
View ArticleAnything Can Happen
Our relationship to the city is always evolving, in Nathaniel Popkin's case, a process aided and abetted by the Hidden City Festival
View ArticleStarting Tomorrow, We’re Making Our Point
This really is a big, complicated city; now let's get out and experience it
View ArticleOnly Temporary?
All across the city, we've come to rely on temporary interventions. Is this merely an honest approach or evidence of shrunken expectations?
View ArticleThe Possible City, 1838
At the Painted Bride starting tomorrow a PIFA production that explores the urgent lives of white and African-American women who formed the Female Anti-Slavery Society and whose work exploded in the...
View ArticleBody Count
Having failed once to stop a completely unjustifiable curb cut for a garage last month, Nathaniel Popkin has learned: forget principles of the new zoning code, the only thing that matters to the Zoning...
View ArticleDeath By A Thousand Curb Cuts
Since he moved into the neighborhood in 1998, says Nathaniel Popkin, dozens of private garages, which act as a repellant to street life, have been built. Now two more near the corner of Eight and South...
View ArticleThree Weeks Of Winter Is Over And We’re Hungry For Stories
Send us your story ideas today!
View ArticleStupid, Lazy, And Cruel
The Affordable Care Act would expand Medicaid coverage to some 750,000 uninsured Philadelphians, including so many who work in journalism, photography, technology, and the arts, but Governor Tom...
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