As part of an ongoing effort to explore how technology can be utilized to improve government function, City Controller Alan Butkovitz announced Wednesday that the city has been using drones to inspect dangerous buildings in neighborhoods across Philadelphia. Butkovitz and his team selected four locations around the city to test the drone’s capacity to make…
An immense collection of books fills the shelves of Tree House Books. From Best American Essays by Annie Dillard to Sula by Toni Morrison to a shelf dedicated to children’s author Lemony Snicket. Tree House Books, a nonprofit organization in North Philadelphia, works to “grow and sustain a community of readers, writers, and thinkers” through…
Philadelphia CeaseFire, based at the medical school’s Center for Bioethics, Urban Health and Policy, seeks to reduce the number of shootings and killings in the 22nd district of North Philadelphia. Ceasefire, which has been in operation for six months, is a structured and disciplined violence intervention program, developed in Chicago and based on the premise…
Myra Gaskins’ life changed in 1989. Her son, LaFaye Gaskins, had been arrested for murder. Myra still insists her son is innocent, but a jury found him guilty in May 1990 of killing Albert Dodson, a drug dealer. LaFaye is currently serving a life sentence at the State Correctional Institution at Mahanoy in Schuylkill County….
Even though it happened just a few months ago, graduation for me was almost a complete blur. I do not remember much of what was said to me on that day except the word “congratulations.” That word was repeated a lot, especially by those who saw me walking to school wearing my cap and…
Meet Graham Meyer, founder of the Philadelphia Common Fencers Guild.
For young black men in Philadelphia, sometimes just walking down the street is all it takes to earn a two-month stint in jail. On Dec. 8 2010, then-18-year-old Isaiah Smith was just returning from visiting his cousin, when he noticed two police officers who were patrolling the area peering out at him from their squad…
Walk down into Aminata Sy’s West Philadelphia basement, and you’ll see color splashed on the walls. There are self-portraits and large, red suns drawn in crayon, as well as maps of Africa highlighting the different countries of the continent. Sy, originally from Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and later Senegal, runs…
I would be untruthful if I wrote that I had everything planned about what to do after I graduate from Arcadia University. There are other things that I wish to look into, such as working on obtaining my teaching license and maybe publishing my thesis once all of the kinks are ironed out
I never imagined that I could have so much in common with a pineapple or banana before sitting down with twins Rachel and Sarah Stanton, business partners and recent graduates of Temple University. Sitting in the Fox School of Business, Sarah Stanton laid out a few of their brightly colored shirts in front of me,…