Commentary

New Kensington Community Development Corp. executive director Bill McKinney poses on this from steps Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025, the “now” view (right) of Kensington to compare with a “then” photo (left) from the 1982 film "Fighting Back." Tom Skerritt, Patti LuPone, and Yaphet Kotto filmed in Kensington with a plotline driven by crime, trauma, and the effects of neighborhood disinvestment that may seem familiar to current Kensington residents.

43 years after the movie ‘Fighting Back,’ a real-life and an imagined sequel

The 1982 movie "Fighting Back," set in Kensington, saw no solution to its challenges but vigilantism. In real life, community-driven development and problem-solving are the path.

A photograph of the Olney-Oak Lane neighborhoods in Philadelphia in 2024. According to Nikia Owens and Jonathan Stein, the city's wage tax refund program is undersubscribed because it is tied to the state's Special Tax Forgiveness program, which excludes many of the working poor.

Opinion

Philadelphia’s working poor should not pay a regressive city wage tax

The decorative portion of the Wanamaker organ, looking up in Macy's Grand Court at the landmark department store on Market Street in 2013.

Opinion

Saving the Wanamaker Grand Court is up to us

Mayor Cherelle L. Parker poses for a photo on a sanitation truck in Philadelphia after a news conference to formally announce two-day trash pickup, Dec. 2, 2024.

Opinion

Doubling cost and vehicle emissions to collect less garbage per shift doesn’t make sense

Sebastian Miller casts his line while fly-fishing on the Schuylkill boardwalk in November 2018. President Jimmy Carter was a passionate fly-fisher who frequently fished in Pennsylvania.

Opinion

43 years after the movie ‘Fighting Back,’ a real-life and an imagined sequel

Philadelphia’s working poor should not pay a regressive city wage tax

Saving the Wanamaker Grand Court is up to us

Doubling cost and vehicle emissions to collect less garbage per shift doesn’t make sense

President Jimmy Carter loved fly-fishing in Pa. His conservation legacy lives on.