Longform

City Life

Steven Singer Loves the Haters

“Have you started your story yet?” Dad asks from across the table. My husband and I are out to dinner with my parents, and the […]

City Life

The Battle Over Philly’s Clean Hydrogen Revolution

Before we meet up, Chris DiGiulio warns me there’s a chance we’ll get hassled by security. She’s bringing a camera — which she says can […]

City Life

Billboard Wars: How Personal Injury Lawyers Took Over Philly

And Leonard Hill makes an even 30. On a crisp November afternoon, as hundreds of thousands of Philadelphians toil away at work and big-dreaming Philadelphia […]

Be Well Philly

Store Hopping and Discount Chasing: How Philadelphians Are Grocery Shopping Now

I once lived above a grocery store, just outside of D.C. It was the life. My condo neighbors and I called it our extended pantry. […]

City Life

Why Investing in “We” Over “Me” Could Heal America

I am not at all inclined to spend money freely or easily, a trait I trace directly to my father. On Saturdays when I was […]

City Life

Pennsylvania Deserves a National Park

Last May, I found myself sweaty and sticky in a hot Southern swamp, questioning my choices. Four years had gone by since my wife and […]

Be Well Philly

Desperate for Rest? A Sleep Retreat Might Be Just What You Need

I showed up to a sleep retreat exactly how you might imagine: utterly exhausted. I was at my wits’ end, having felt bone-tired for over […]

Foobooz

Provenance Is Philly’s Most Ambitious Restaurant — If It Can Survive

In the kitchen at Provenance, there’s no music. There’s no shouting, no raised voices. There’s no smell to the place that isn’t the non-smell of […]

City Life

Can John Fry Revive Temple?

“I’m not a real estate person,” John Fry says 10 minutes into a winding tour of Drexel’s campus on an overcast afternoon in late September. […]

City Life

How One Philadelphia Prison Could Change Incarceration in America

Inside the imposing beige walls of the state correctional institution in Chester, there is a fish tank whose inhabitants are part of something bigger than […]

City Life

I’m Sending My Kid to CCD Because I’m Scared of My Mom

It’s a hot day in the middle of July, 100 degrees, the sort of heat that makes the air feel heavy, and I’m standing with […]

City Life

The New Face of New Hope: How a Small Bucks County Town Became a Playground for the Rich and Famous

One evening, as I drove down Main Street in New Hope, I passed three high-end restaurants, two boutique hotels, a Chelsea Market-style suite of trendy […]

wildflower farm willistown chester county
City Life

How a Vicious Legal Battle Over a Wildflower Farm Tore This Bucolic Philly Suburb Apart

This much, at least, was not in dispute: The man wasn’t happy. On May 9, 2021 — Mother’s Day, as it happened — Bret Steidle, […]

City Life

If Patience Is a Virtue, What Is Our On-Demand World Teaching Our Children?

“Mom, can we look at backpacks, like you said?” It was the Fourth of July. Three weeks into summer break and eight weeks before fifth […]

Foobooz

Meet the Foragers Changing the Way Philly Eats

As soon as Philip Manganaro gets out of his pickup truck, he starts rummaging through the bushes lining a gravel lot in Medford. Within a […]