Category: Miscellaneous
We’re thinking about renovation a lot these days
February 19, 2015By Anna Lehr Mueser, Public Relations Manager
We’re now 18 days into our building renovations, with the entire east wing of our visitor center closed off. On the first day, a wall went up to keep noise and dust down. Behind that wall, floors and bathrooms are being replaced, some classrooms renovated while others refreshed, windows updated with more energy-efficient versions, and the antique HVAC replaced.
So here, six things we’re looking forward to about the new spaces:
Elisabeth, our public programs manager, is looking forward to the new aesthetic, with modern colors and an auditorium scaled up for big events…
The Next Mayor of a Great American City
February 12, 2015By Mike Weilbacher, Executive Director
It’s still deep in the winter, so it’s not too surprising that the city’s mayoral race has barely begun heating up, and candidates are still sorting themselves out. As of this writing, the May Democratic primary features quite a range of experiences: former DA Lynne Abraham, former Common Pleas judge Nelson Diaz, former councilman James Kenny, former senior VP at the Gas Works Doug Oliver, state senator Anthony Williams, and possibly even former state senator Milton Street, a former mayor’s brother.
On the Republican side, while both newly retired Pennsylvania Supreme Court justice Ron Castille…
Climate Change and the Two Toms
June 17, 2014By Mike Weilbacher, Executive Director
This piece will printed in the Roxborough Review on Thursday, June 19 in the column Natural Selections
“We are the first generation to feel the sting of climate change,” Washington State Governor Jay Inslee notably says in the new TV series, Years of Living Dangerously, “and we are the last generation that can do something about it.”
Inslee gets it—climate change will be the transcendent environmental issue of the coming decades. Hard to know yet if either Governor Tom Corbett or his opponent, Democratic challenger Tom Wolf, gets it at quite this high level of…
Local Food Culture in Philadelphia: A look at a growing movement
April 30, 2014By Daphne Churchill, Intern and Educator
A bright sunny Saturday draws you out for a morning walk. You look up the street and see the white tents with tables of fresh products: red radishes, leafy green lettuce, freshly cut flower bouquets, free-range eggs, fresh goat cheeses, liquid amber honeys. The tables are bountiful and the tents abundant. Neighbors chat with one another as they nibble free samples and discuss their purchases. You overhear growers converse about sustainable practices and their business with the consumers as they debate and make their purchases. This typical scene of a farmer’s market has become…
