In West Philly

When they walk out of the Quad and head north, freshmen at Upenn gawk at the Wistar Institute at 3601 Spruce St., wondering what goes on inside the strange building in the heart of the campus that's totally unaffiliated with the university. The Wistar Institute was founded in 1892 and has

Don't ask us what we were doing on the Mantua/Belmont border. Whatever you might hear, we were positively not lost or confused, and we absolutely know exactly how to get to the Spring Garden bridge.

Anyways, we were around 38th and Folsom Sts., and got a weird feeling, like we had

Penn Park, the new $46.5M outdoor space located between railroad tracks and railroad tracks on the eastern end of Penn's campus, officially opened last week to much fanfare. The park, covering 24 acres and designed by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, contains play areas for both formal, organized sport, and informal

On the south side of the 4100 block of Chestnut St. is a warehouse building that has been occupied by Graphics Arts Inc. for decades. With the family-owned printing company's recent merger with Smith-Edwards-Dunlap Company, they've moved their manufacturing facility to Port Richmond and sold their West Philly building to

For those who don't pay close attention to these things, the children of Philadelphia returned to school today. About eight-hundred of them will (occasionally) be attending school at the new $66M West Philadelphia High School at 49th and Chestnut Sts.

Whether or not you think it's appropriate for the financially strapped

If you've been to 30th Street Station lately, you may have noticed the serious construction activity taking place in the parking area on the southern side of the station. It's been going on for months, and we didn't have a clue what was going on there... until now. Turns out

We recently got an email from a reader asking about the weird vacancy on the corner of 40th and Chestnut Sts., across the street from Distrito.

For those of you unfamiliar with that corner, the Hub is the prominent building anyone would notice right away. It was constructed almost five years

Located at the corner of 47th St. and Cedar Ave., the Suzuki Piano Academy is a music school that opened up last year in West Philadelphia, in the space formerly occupied by the famous Carrot Cake Man. The school utilizes the Suzuki Method, which models its techniques after language acquisition

If you've found yourself in University City lately, you may have noticed a large building going up right off the corner at 41st and Walnut Sts. Campus Apartments, in cooperation with Upenn, is building a Homewood Suites hotel at 4109 Walnut St. Homewood Suites is a part of the Hilton

Immediately next door to Vientiane Cafe, on the 4700 block of Baltimore, sits a super-wide vacant lot that seems pretty well maintained. With Vientiane, Dahlak, Vietnam Cafe, and Mariposa all thriving on this block, it seems a little odd that this well-located and sizable lot would sit vacant. So... we