Tag: Philadelphia

  • The Philadelphia Beat is Pretty Big

    The Philadelphia Beat is Pretty Big

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    Brendan Barry
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    Early last week I read an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer about where the city’s police officers live, an important issue given the city’s loose requirement they reside within the city limits. Whilst most do, especially in the far Northeast, the Northwest, and South Philadelphia, a significant number live outside the city. (The city of…

  • Tarnished Linings

    Tarnished Linings

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    Brendan Barry
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    Last month the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) ordered Philadelphia’s public transit system, SEPTA, to inspect the backbone of its commuter rail service, Regional Rail: all 225 Silverliner IV railcars. The Silverliner IV fleet, aged over 50 years, suffered a series of fires this summer and the NTSB investigators wanted them inspected by the end…

  • Boy, Does That Stink

    Boy, Does That Stink

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    Brendan Barry
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    (Editor’s note, i.e. my post-publish edit: The subject matter, not the work.) Last week the Philadelphia Inquirer published an article about the volume of sewage discharged into the region’s waterways over nearly a decade. It cited a report from Penn Environment, which claimed 12.7 billion tons of sewage enter the Delaware River’s watershed. I clicked…

  • A New Downtown Arena for Philadelphia?

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    Brendan Barry
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    I woke up this morning and the breaking news was that the local basketball team, the 76ers, proposed a new downtown arena just four blocks from my office. The article included a graphic showing the precise location of the site. For our purposes this is just a little locator map in a larger article. But…

  • Where’s the Axis

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    Brendan Barry
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    We’re starting this week with an article from the Philadelphia Inquirer. It looks at the increasing number of guns confiscated by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) at Philadelphia International Airport. Now while this is a problem we could discuss, one of the graphics therein has a problem that we’ll discuss here. We have a pretty…

  • Fire in Fairmount

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    Brendan Barry
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    Philadelphia made the national and international news last week, although for once not because we’re all being shot to death. This time because a fire in a rowhome killed 12 people, including nine children. The Philadelphia Inquirer quickly posted a short article explaining what occurred that morning. But the early indication, based upon the confession…

  • Philadelphia’s Wild Winters

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    Brendan Barry
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    Winter is coming? Winter is here. At least meteorologically speaking, because winter in that definition lasts from December through February. But winters in Philadelphia can be a bit scattershot in terms of their weather. Yesterday the temperature hit 19ºC before a cold front passed through and knocked the overnight low down to 2ºC. A warm…

  • Rarely Shady in Philadelphia

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    Brendan Barry
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    After a rainy weekend in Philadelphia thanks to Hurricane Henri, we are bracing for another heat wave during the middle of this week. Of course when you swelter in the summer, you seek out shade. But as a recent article in the Philadelphia Inquirer pointed out, not all neighbourhoods have the same levels of tree…

  • Philadelphia’s Changing Skyline

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    Brendan Barry
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    Yesterday I mentioned how I spent Monday researching some old family properties in Philadelphia. In some cases the homes my family owned still stand. But, in many others the homes have long since been replaced. But that’s the nature of city development. That got me thinking about an article published earlier this month at Philadelphia…

  • Substandard Housing in Philadelphia

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    Brendan Barry
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    I took a holiday yesterday and headed down the street to the Philadelphia City Archives, which houses some of the oldest documents dating back to the founding of the colony. But I was there primarily to try and find deeds and property information for my ancestors as part of my genealogy work. When I walked…