Development Drexel’s John Fry On Innovation Neighborhood, Schools, UCHS, & The Culture Of “Moving Fast” This week, Hidden City's Nathaniel Popkin and Bradley Maule met with Drexel University President John Fry to talk campus development, partnerships, ideas for his proposed "innovation neighborhood," and his vision for integrated high density development ...
Development At University City High, Possibility Amidst Pain Certainly the most tantalizing school site to be going on the market is the seven acre University City High School Campus, wedged between Penn and Drexel. The history of institutional involvement, however, is long and ...
Art & Design Spare A Dime For Bok’s Memories: WPA Play Begins Tonight The group CosaCosa brings the politics of the New Deal into a New Deal-funded auditorium in a school about to close--a song cycle for a cycle of economics and politics. Katrina Ohstrom previews the PIFA ...
Photography Great Depression To Great Recession: The Life And Death Of Bok High A lens on American education policy at Bok, one of the only school buildings in the city to have been built completely by the WPA. Its closing leaves a students adrift and the future of ...
Preservation The Geography Of Retreat Hidden City has covered more churches and schools that have closed, are closing, or might be closing, than we'd really care to. John Vidumsky has plotted them on a citywide map to illustrate just how ...
Photography “Ruin Porn” Leaves Us Forlorn The "ruin porn" tag was put on our tours and events schedule; we think we're offering something that's quite a bit more--we want to make people alive to the city's ...
Art & Design Renovator’s Tale: Salvaging A Gym Floor (Part One) Enamored with the idea of salvaging an old floor? HC contributor Jacob Hellman has an insider's story on the reclamation of a South Philly school gym's hardwood. The upshot--it may not be as easy as ...
Architecture Why All Philly Schools Look The Same Ever wondered about that distinctive boxy shape you see in most Philadelphia schools? Philip Jablon dives into the architectural vision of Irwin T. Catharine, the man responsible for the schools' ...
