West Philadelphia : Featured Stories

Gabriel Mandujano is the founder and CEO of Philadelphia-based Wash Cycle Laundry, a triple-bottom-line social enterprise that provides much-needed corporate laundry services while also providing green economy jobs to folks returning to the workforce.

Like all organisms, founders start small and evolve. But instead of birth, childhood, adolescence and adulthood, they mature from intellectual capital to incubation, bootstrapping to venture capital, startup to established company.

Every year, this four-acre plot produces 12,000 pounds of food, welcomes 10,000 school kids, employs 22 high school interns, hosts 45 families in a community garden, distributes 80,000 seedlings, supplies 50 farmstands and welcomes 1500 volunteers. And there's more.

Check out our picks for the week's top events.

This historic site is reinventing itself for the 21st century, emphasizing both attracting new visitors -- with help from an ambitious trail project -- and connecting with the surrounding neighborhoods.

Check out our picks for the week's top events. 

Check out our picks for the week's top events. 

Check out our picks for the week's top events. 

The earliest civilizations knew how to weave fiber into textiles. But those products bear little resemblance to the high-tech "functional fabrics" being engineered in Philadelphia -- these miraculous materials can see, hear, sense and communicate.

Whether it's Drexel's Schuylkill Yards strategy, the Science Center's uCity Square expansion or visions for capping and developing the rail yards north of 30th Street Station, the neighborhood we see today is not long for this world.

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Last week, the Parkside community came together to officially dedicate "North Star," a colorful mural adjacent to a neighborhood playground. Photographer Richard Barnes was on hand to document the event. #OntheGround

Thanks to an exciting University City Science Center program, businesses seeking a foothold in the U.S. are choosing Philadelphia. These firms are pioneering groundbreaking technologies, transforming sectors such as oncology and wind power.

Lonely Planet recently named our fair city the top U.S. destination for 2016. As a new wave of tourists and transplants discover all Philly has to offer, here are some tips to getting off the beaten path.

Check out our picks for the week's top events.