I was inside Di Bruno Bros., Philadelphia’s beloved, 70-year-old artisan cheese shop and gourmet delicatessen, when something very apparent sunk in for me. They’ll sell me a block of Manchego sheep’s milk cheese for $5, or bratwurst or beef from the region for a few dollars a pound. It’s profitable and prominent. But I’d bet [...]

The Knight News Challenge is once again alive. The deadline for applications in the fifth annual media innovation pitch series from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation is, as deadlines tend to do, rapidly approaching: Dec. 1. It was only back in June that the recipients of the 2010 Knight News Challenge grants [...]

Earlier this summer, I did some reporting for sustainability publication Grid magazine about Dansko, a suburban-Philadelphia durable footwear company that specializes in clogs. Unfortunately I couldn’t finish the story for some personal reasons. Still, you should see the final product by Natalie Hope McDonald on Page 10 here, and check out the whole mag, which [...]

The sustainable renovation of the Globe Dye Works, a former manufacturing complex in the Frankford neighborhood of Northeast Philadelphia, is the focus of a story I have in Grid magazine this month. For five generations and 140 years, the Globe Dye Works dyed and wound yarn, and employed hundreds at its peak. In 2005, unable [...]