city lights, and she remembers the first moving stairs (in Philadelphia)

Last evening, at the Cultural Series at the Kennedy House, we were talking about Philadelphia then. "We" were the wonderful Philadelphians in a 30th-floor room, shoulder to shoulder with memory.

The wooden trolley cars. The fruit peddler. The rides an 11-year-old took on her own from West Philly to the Betsy Ross House and Independence Mall. Kensington at its height as a mill town. And then that moment when the PSFS Building opened its doors and a little girl went with her mother to ride the city's first moving stairs. Up and down and up and down they went. This brand-new wonder in a world still seized by Depression-era constraints.

The history was palpable. There were stars in our eyes.

I photographed my river, the old restored Post Office Building, and the rising FMC Tower at dusk, from JFK Boulevard, on my way to the event. The city in lights.

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Philadelphia on the rise

Last Thursday I hopped a train and did that thing I do—walked my city. The sun was bright. The air was crisp. And the city was (as it has been) on the rise. A few snapshots from the expedition, including some of the time I spent at the Union League, with the generous Rotarians.

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Philly is Number 3 on the New York Times "52 Places to Go in 2015" list, and I'm feeling pride

Not as if I haven't been saying that myself (well, sort of), right here, and in the Inquirer, and in my books. But huzzah. This is the New York Times speaking, not just some homegrown booster.

I am taking particular pleasure in this because I have had the privilege of working with some of the people who are making the radical difference. Let's put Brandywine Realty Trust high on that radical difference list, and Brandywine CEO Jerry Sweeney himself, who has quietly and collaboratively helped engineer a renaissance along the Schuylkill River Banks (through the Schuylkill River Development Corporation, which he chairs), in University City, and in the downtown nexus. Let's talk about outdoor artists like Jane Golden and Isaiah Zagar. Let's look at my alma mater and employer, the University of Pennsylvania, which keeps the greening coming.

In naming Philadelphia right after Milan and Cuba on its list, the New York Times, in its January 9, 2015 story, said this:

The making of an urban outdoor oasis.

A series of projects has transformed Philadelphia into a hive of outdoor urban activity. Dilworth Park, formerly a hideous slab of concrete adjoining City Hall, reopened this past autumn as a green, pedestrian-friendly public space with a winter ice-skating rink (and a cafe by the indefatigable chef Jose Garces). Public art installations, mini "parklets" and open-air beer gardens have become common sights. The Delaware River waterfront was reworked for summer 2014 with the Spruce Street Harbor Park (complete with hammocks, lanterns and floating bar) becoming a new fixture, following the renovation of the Race Street Pier, completed in 2011, and offers free yoga classes on a bi-level strip of high-design decking and grass. The city’s other river, the Schuylkill, has its own new boardwalk. To top it off, this spring, Philadelphia will get its first bike share program, making this mostly flat city even more friendly for those on two wheels. Nell McShane Wulfhart

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Philadelphia in Pictures: Paine's Park, Boathouse Row, Water Works, Project Flow

I go nowhere without one of my cameras, and so, on Thursday, as I made my way to my morning of chilling with the teen writers of Project Flow, I stopped along the Schuylkill Banks and snapped a few shots. They capture the heat and color of the day.

That's Paine's Park up there, the brand-new skateboard park that sort of blew me away with its size and sweep; that's the Philadelphia Art Museum in the background. My friend Mike rides the curves of this park every weekend morning. I could have sat and watched for hours.

And then the Fairmount Water Works Interpretive Center and then a sneaky shot of Cira Centre. Cira is a Cesar Pelli designed/Brandywine Realty Trust building that marked the start of University City's renaissance. It is also the brain child of Jerry Sweeney, a city visionary whose leadership along the Banks and within the gridded city is largely responsible for changing the way Philadelphians and friends experience the city. I'm proud to count Jerry as a friend.

Next a broader view of the Schuylkill and Boathouse Row.

Next the back face of the museum with its fields of flowers.

Finally a few of the young people I met while talking about rivers and words.

Come to Philadelphia.

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Dine In/Help Out

Last year, I had the privilege of hosting two of my long-time clients—Mike Cola, until recently the president of Shire Pharmaceuticals, and Jerry Sweeney, the CEO of Brandywine Realty Trust, along with the beautiful women in their lives, for an initiative called Dine In/Help Out.  Dine In/Help Out is designed to promote healthy eating through its Farm to Families program.  I chronicled my efforts here, on the blog.  Confessed to being a less-than-perfect cook who is blessed with near-perfect friends.

This summer St. Christopher's Foundation for Children is sponsoring its second DIHO event, and because I adore Jan Shaeffer, the Foundation's executive director, and because the St. Christopher's Foundation crowd is my all-time most favorite philanthropic Philly crowd, I was there, at the launch party.  Read about the whole story here, in this Joan A. Bang Mainline Media News.  Or go to the Dine In/Help Out site and see what you can do to have fun and help this worthy cause.

Thank you, Kimberly Hallman of Devine + Powers, for sending this to me just now.

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scenes from the (teaching and commuting) day

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Philadelphia at Night: A Portrait (and a fine Dangerous Neighbors review)

I returned home from my afternoon at 1209 Vine to spend an hour reading the latest thoughts, impressions, and declarations of the online book discussion group that I've been leading for the Kelly Writers House at the University of Pennsylvania.  I then turned right around, hopped the train once more, and headed back to the city for the launch of Jay Kirk's first book, Kingdom Under Glass, an altogether wonderful affair conducted within the halls of the Academy of Natural Sciences.

It was near midnight when I crossed the river and looked south, toward the newly rehabilitated Main Post Office Building at 30th Street.  My city photographs well, any time of day or night.

In between the travel and the book-club talk (and, okay, true, a few corporate assignations), I received word of this gorgeous review of Dangerous Neighbors over at Alison's Book Marks, which concludes with words that any writer of non-vampire texts yearns to hear:

Different from anything I have ever read before, Beth Kephart raises the bar on Young Adult novels. She proves that you don't need vampires and werewolves to capture this audience's attention, and bring them on a journey they will not soon forget.

  Thank you, Alison.

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Tall Philadelphia and Life in the Thumb

 In Dangerous Neighbors, Katherine is forever climbing towers and hills to get a better view of her city, something I am prone to do today.  I took this shot of my city from the Cira Centre bridge, just across the Schuylkill River, on the west side.  That's the new Comcast building, rising tallest in the center.  Far beyond, to the right, is William Penn balanced on the top of City Hall.  It wasn't all that long ago when no one dared build any higher than Penn's generous bronze hat.  As one who has loved this city all her life, I am astonished, always, by how rapidly things change and disappear.

One thing, however, does not change, and that is my gratitude to those who make the time for books, and then make even more time to articulate their reactions.  Today I thank Life in the Thumb, for her very kind and very wonderfully structured review of Dangerous Neighbors.  It means so much.

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Philadelphia at Dusk

Philadelphia, through the bridge window at Cira Centre.
The lights go on.
The taxis urge toward home.

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Returning to Work

From the train platform at 30th Street Station, I always had this view of Cira Centre—of the offices, in particular, of Brandywine Realty Trust, a once and sometimes client. Waiting for the train on Monday evenings, I'd watch my friends across the way, huddled in meetings or hurrying back and forth, sitting alone with a pen in hand. I'd wonder what they were up to now, how their next buildings would shape the cityscape, what they would think of me if they turned and saw me—a teacher for a spell, not a consultant.

Yesterday I left academia and returned to the world of corporate work. I sat with my good friend (and co-author) Matt Emmens in the offices of Shire. Turned my thoughts toward an annual report and a news magazine. Buckled myself in for the ride. The thing about the life I live is that there are friends at every turn—people I am genuinely eager to see, stories I can thread my way into. Everywhere in this world, people are dreaming. They are putting up buildings and launching new drugs. Sometimes I stand by their side.

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Dr. Constantine Papadakis: A Tribute

I spoke in a recent post of my privileged life—living literature, living community and ideas at the same time. I spoke of how sometimes luck walked me straight through the door of extraordinary people and let me stay awhile.

Dr. Constantine Papadakis, who served for 13 years as the president of Drexel University until his passing yesterday, was one of those big-thinking, renaissance-quality people. He was just 63, and today my city mourns his loss.

I spent time in the company of Dr. Papadakis during my work on a book commemorating the rise of Cira Centre, an historic glass building in West Philadelphia. Not a lot of time—just enough to understand and appreciate how deep a thinker he was. Our conversation was to focus on the emergence of West Philadelphia, on the shifting center of this Quaker City. It quickly spilled over into talk about Anthony Drexel and George Childs, two of my favorite historic Philadelphians. It moved from there into broader philosophical terrain, and when my team arrived a few weeks later to photograph the great doctor in that grand hall of Drexel, he was charismatic and charming all over again—more artifactual stories to tell, that bright smile on his handsome Greek face.

Drexel University is a vastly different place than it once was—anchored in with new architecture (for architecture was a Dr. Papadakis passion) by Michael Graves, I.M. Pei, and others; set off in many new directions. West Philadelphia has changed enormously, too—thanks to him, thanks to my alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania, and thanks to Dr. Papadakis's dear friend, Jerry Sweeney, the visionary CEO of Brandywine Realty Trust, who made certain that Cira rose above an old train yard and who set us free to write a book that led us through the door of souls like Dr. Papadakis.

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Luminescence

The building was old. The window was shut. The sun found it nonetheless: luminescence.

I have been thinking lately about how bright the shine can be on places, or people, we return to after a long absence. The garden down the road seems brighter, more tender, when we notice it (finally) again. An old friend drives by, stops, is suddenly before you, and there, in that moment, the friendship is newly burnished.

Recently a client called me back after a two-year hiatus, and it felt like going dancing. Reconnecting with the team (still there, still charming, still able to affably get my goat like few others affably can). Filling in the blanks. Sitting with the CEO and talking history, Philadelphia, library expansions, river developments, the future of public television, the remaking of urban landscapes. People are not replaceable, that is a fact, and I count it a privilege when we in this life get to know others over a palpable stretch of time.

No conversation to be taken for granted. No window permanently shuttered.

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