Contributor Jonathan Schmalzbach talks with a designer and a printmaker about their obsession with manhole covers and public utility as creative muse

In 1839, amateur chemist Robert Cornelius was experimenting with a new photographic process at his family’s store in Center City. That fateful year, in an alley off of Chestnut Street, he would give birth to the world’s first “selfie.” Meet the conservator who is working to preserve the elusive portfolio of one of history’s most influential photographers. Joe Brin has the story

After 40 years of screening independent films, the theater at International House expands programming and gets a new name. Joe Brin takes a look at Lightbox Film Center

Emma Fried-Cassorla’s blog has provided an open platform for Philly Love Notes for two years now. To mark the occasion, she’s meticulously cut a three-foot-by-three-foot map of the city out of paper by hand—and she’s giving it away for free

Perhaps no one is more responsible for the vision of transforming the Reading Viaduct into a civic space and park than the acclaimed painter Sarah McEneaney. Nathaniel Popkin talks with McEneaney at Locks Gallery, where the painter’s Viaduct-centered work comes together in “Trestletown”

In this second installment of “Behind the Facade,” Nicolas Esposito finds himself at the kitchen table of Pedro Ospina, a Kensington sculptor who barters and builds his way to contentment

A display of rustic, recycled art objects pops up amid the fashionable shops