Longform
How Much Turmoil Can Temple University Take?
It was a momentous day at Temple University. Jason Wingard, the first Black president in the school’s 138-year history, was being inaugurated. Owing to the […]
Why Are We So Obsessed With Wegmans?
What the hell is wrong with people, including me? A new supermarket is coming to Lower Makefield, and folks are losing their minds, like we […]
These Are the Golden Years? On Retirement and Chicken Piccata
My husband is cooking dinner in the kitchen — the kitchen that for the past three-plus years has also been my home office. He’s making […]
Gretchen Harrington, a Delco Pastor, and the End of Innocence
On Saturday, August 16, 1975, in the pre-dawn hours, a police sergeant in a suburb near Salt Lake City, Utah, pulled over a tan Volkswagen […]
Unlikely Affinity: The Beauty of Vacation Friends
Almost exactly one year ago, my husband took me on a surprise vacation for my 40th birthday: a four-day jaunt to Key West, Florida. We […]
The Battle for 76 Place: One Year Later, Where Things Stand With the Sixers’ Controversial Arena Project
“Holy shit, this is what I’m building.” David Adelman and I are walking around outside TD Garden before the May 9th Sixers-Celtics playoff game. The […]
Philadelphia and the Case of the Disappearing Neighborhood Bars
Wanda’s Lounge was a bar. There were many bars like it, but this one was a wee corner dive on a residential block of Kingsessing, […]
Leslie Richards’s Bold Vision for a Better SEPTA
On a pleasant morning in mid-May, SEPTA general manager Leslie Richards and I are standing on a train platform in Kensington, smack in the middle […]
Reviving the “Unsexy” Food of Pennsylvania’s Past
An archeologist recites a paean to shad before a couple dozen people who fill Elwood’s rowhouse dining room one Sunday afternoon in May. “Tender as […]
Why Are 30,000 People Studying Poetry Online With This Guy?
Last summer, bleary, disheartened, and often angry from more than two years of seemingly nonstop doomscrolling, I decided it was time for a big change. […]
The Semi-Secret Dinner Parties Reimagining Philly’s Restaurant Scene
“I made you paella arancini,” Liz Grothe says to me with the matter-of-factness of a lunch lady divvying up peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches. As if what she’s […]
Apartment Construction Is Booming. How Will That Change Philly?
The first week of November 2022 wasn’t all that different from most weeks on the construction front in Philadelphia lately. On Wednesday, November 2nd, developer […]
How Angela Val Plans to Bring Tourists Back to Philadelphia
Visit Philadelphia. These are two words that until recently made a lot of sense together — a sonorous duet, if you will. A simple truism. […]
The Joy of Burning It All Down: Alexandra Holt’s Insurgent Experiment in Fine Dining
Retirement Planning (2 days after dinner service) On the phone, chef Alexandra Holt and I are talking about the future. For the 24-seat BYO named […]
Philly’s Biotech Scene Needs More Local Money — Now
Around every corner, the gizmos sound like something cooked up by a mad scientist in the movies: a 24-way-robot-controlled bio-reactor, a “viral positive” room, a […]