Michael Bixler has this preview of the three new public spaces opening on Friday at the Free Library of Philadelphia’s Parkway Central branch

Affordable housing, displacement and gentrification, demolition for redevelopment–sounds a lot like today’s local headlines, but Philly has been dealing with these issues for decades. This and more is addressed in the new exhibition, “Philadelphia: The Changing City,” now on view at the Free Library of Philadelphia. Ali Roseberry-Polier has the review

The Free Library of Philadelphia’s Parkway Central Branch is homing in on the needs of the 21st century patron with modern upgrades and robust public programming. Michael Bixler bids adieu to the grand library’s massive book retrieval system that was recently dismantled to make way for three new centers of interactive social space

One of the city’s most important assets is our sprawling system of neighborhood libraries. These indispensable, community hubs, 52 in all, are beginning to receive desperately needed TLC after years of financial and structural neglect. Contributor Grace Diliberto gives us the details on two citywide initiatives to revive and reboot libraries for contemporary uses, followed by an extensive survey of some of the city’s most architecturally distinct book lenders

Join Charles Dickens, Edgar Allen Poe, and Grip the raven inside the Rare Book Department of the Free Library in the newest installment of My Favorite Place

If buildings could make distress signals the Mercantile Library on Chestnut Street would fill the ears of all in Center City. The once sleek, mid-century modern structure, vacant for 26 years, now sits in a state of slow decay. Interior architect Shila Griffith says the bones of the building are still strong and envisions a co-working space for medical industrial designers with this month’s Marked Potential

One of Philadelphia’s greatest contemporary writers, Beth Kephart changed the way we look at place and history in Flow: The Life and Times of Philadelphia’s Schuylkill River. She’s back with LOVE: A Philadelphia Affair, a memoir and meditation on this city. Nathaniel Popkin caught up with Kephart for a chance to talk about the ideas behind the book

The Northeast Regional Library on Cottman Avenue was built with a Modernist eye and a civic mind. Part of the Free Library’s 1956 Regional Plan to put a library within 15 minutes of every Philadelphian’s doorstep, the branch was also the first in the area, officially unifying the relatively new neighborhood with the rest of the city. Molly Lester looks at the origins of Northeast Philadelphia expansion through the lens of this award winning Mid-Century mainstay