William Still & Family Mural

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The William Still & Family mural was dedicated 8/1/25 at the house on Delhi Street (at Bainbridge) where the abolitionist and Underground Railroad figure once lived, with several of his descendants in the audience and Mural Arts director Jane Golden exuberantly leading the ceremony, barely able to contain her delight, bouncing up and down behind the lectern. More than 100 people attended, including the artist, Ernel Martinez, and supporters of the project who worked together to make it happen.

Ernel Martinez

Farewell, SS United States

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As the storied SS United States was towed down the Delaware River toward the Atlantic (2/19/25), two or three hundred people lined the riverfront greenway at the Navy Yard in South Philadelphia to bid it farewell. The ship disappeared around a bend and the audience left. A few minutes later the ship reappeared in the distance as the tugs kept to the channel, and from maybe a mile away the behemoth, already a pale and rusted shell of its former grand self, appeared even more ghostlike and faded. Its trip to Mobile, Alabama, is expected to take two to three weeks. The plan is for it to be rendered environmentally safe (detoxified) before becoming an artificial reef in the Gulf of Mexico off Destin/Fort Walton Beach, Florida. Fair seas!

Dorothy, we’re not in South Philly anymore

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Saving a residential parking space in Philadelphia can involve trash cans, lawn chairs, PGW cones, sofas, ropes, children’s toys — but you’ll never see a surfboard in the mix, as we did in Kihei, Maui, where old surfboards have a lot of uses, including as colorful fencing.