City of Philadelphia

Young children practice ballet at a barre in a ballet studio.

Building a better world, one side gig at a time

The 10th piece for this series showcases a nurse who founded a low-cost dance studio, a staffer who fosters kittens, an HR specialist who teaches high schoolers life skills, and an English professor who volunteers for his old summer camp.

What does the future hold for the Tanner House? Historic preservation grad students have ideas

Graduate students at the Weitzman School of Design are teaming with Weitzman’s Randall Mason to discuss ways to expand the historical significance and preserve the architecture of the Henry O. Tanner House in North Philadelphia.

Philadelphians welcomed PhilTel’s first free public phone as a small way to resist big tech

Naveen Albert, a fourth-year in the School of Engineering and Applied Science, has co-founded PhilTel, a free-to-use public wifi payphone project in Philadelphia.

Closeup of a stethoscope held up by a medical worker.

A gateway from high school to Penn Medicine

Penn Medicine’s Pathways Emerging Careers Program invites Philadelphia high school graduates to start a career with Penn Medicine with extra coaching, training, and mentoring.

Why there’s nowhere to hang out at night in Philly anymore

The Penn Bookstore is noted as one of the few public evening spaces remaining after the pandemic, with remarks from Associate Vice President Anthony P. Sorrentino and Dennis Culhane of the School of Social Policy & Practice.

Philadelphia Orchestra donates its entire archive to Penn

The Philadelphia Orchestra has donated almost its entire archive, as well as that of the Academy of Music, to Penn Libraries’ Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books, and Manuscripts, with quotes from the center’s director, Sean M. Quimby.

America’s blueprint for urban inequity was drawn in Philly. It failed Black Philadelphians

Matthew Jordan-Miller Kenyatta of the Weitzman School of Design sees an opportunity for Philadelphia to reset with an antiracist foundation, using Sankofa urban planning to incorporate Black history as a guide toward the future.

With PennDOT studying transit options for Roosevelt Boulevard, a subway is back on the table

In an Op-Ed, doctoral candidate Jay Arzu of the Weitzman School of Design explains why plans for the Roosevelt Boulevard subway in Northeast Philadelphia are back on the table.

From the U.N. climate conference, advice for Philly as it adapts to global warming

A delegation of Penn students, researchers, and faculty who attended the COP27 climate conference offer their ideas for how Philadelphia officials can work to make the goals of the Paris Agreement a reality.

How Philly can stay ahead of the curve in addressing climate change

In an Op-Ed, visiting scholar Mauricio Rodas of Perry World House and Eugénie L. Birch of the Weitzman School of Design offer recommendations that might help Philadelphia mitigate and adapt to extreme heat.

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