What a pleasant thing it was to travel to the city, to meet my friend and Temple Press publicist Gary Kramer for an extended stroll through favorite places, and to be introduced to Dan Marcel, a talented videographer, photographer, and film maker, who created two separate videos.
First is my interview with Gary, about the making of Love: A Philadelphia Affair
The second provides a partial city tour—particularly Locust Walk, 30th Street Station, and Schuylkill Banks—as well as brief readings from the book.
Love, which has been kindly endorsed by some of Philadelphia's great leaders, will launch in early September. On October 7, at 7:30, I'll be celebrating its release on the Free Library of Philadelphia stage with Marciarose Shestak. Please consider joining us there.
Dan Marcel is a marvel—well-named, I've said. You can find out more about his Marcelevision Media here; I highly recommend him. Please listen, too, to the original song, "Trailing Whispers," written and performed for the second production by Dan's mother, Susan.
Gary Kramer (who is not just Temple's publicist but a powerhouse film critic, a Salon.com writer, a Bryn Mawr Film Institute lecturer, among other things):. You made this happen and I could talk to you forever. Thank you.
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I walked the new Schuylkill Banks Boardwalk before my river talk last evening. The skies were expressive, pewter and blue, and from this 15-foot-wide float of walkway over the river herself, I saw the city as I had not seen her before. One of the many exhilarating advantages of this new and elevating space.
Another advantage? The joy of it. The Philadelphians who are coming to know, and to better see, their river. The sense that they don't take this for granted, and why should they? It wasn't all that long ago that the Schuylkill was sludge and noxious fumes, dead water, a place to be hurried past. Now, thanks to the Schuylkill River Development Corporation, Fairmount Water Works, Schuylkill River Heritage Area, the William Penn Foundation, the people I have met this week at the 2014 Pennsylvania River of the Year events, and many others, the Schuylkill is the place to be.
I've written here about the Heritage Area. I've written here about Fairmount Water Works. Today, my spotlight is on the SRDC.
Already offering kayaking and river tours, skateboard parks and overlooks, this brand-new boardwalk, and the idea of the bucolic in an urbanscape, the SRDC is hardly done with its quest to build "trails and greenway running along both banks of the Schuylkill River wherever possible between the Fairmount Dam and the Delaware River." Now planned or in play are the Bartram's Mile, destined to run along the west bank between Grays Ferry Avenue and 58th Street (and one-day connecting to the Grays Ferry Crescent by an abandoned railroad bridge); a pedestrian/biking west bank trail; and an east-side trail between the South Street Bridge and Christian.
All I know is words. The SRDC, the organizations mentioned above, the river advocates who work on behalf of tributaries, against run-off, for the future—they are the ones making the physical, even quantifiable difference to our city.
Find a way to thank them the next time you head off toward the river. You wouldn't be there without them.
I'm deeply grateful to the good people at Schuylkill River Heritage Area, Fairmount Water Waters, Schuylkill Banks, and Temple University Press, who have so generously spread the word. My talk, titled "River Dreams: History, Hope, and the Imagination," begins like this:
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More can be found here.
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By: Beth Kephart ,
on 8/24/2015
Blog: Beth Kephart Books (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Temple University Press, Free Library of Philadelphia, Locust Walk, 30th Street Station, Gary Kramer, Schuylkill Banks, LOVE: A Philadelphia Affair, Marciarose Shestack, Daniel Marcel, Marcelevision Media, Add a tag
Blog: Beth Kephart Books (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Temple University Press, Free Library of Philadelphia, Locust Walk, 30th Street Station, Gary Kramer, Schuylkill Banks, LOVE: A Philadelphia Affair, Marciarose Shestack, Daniel Marcel, Marcelevision Media, Add a tag
0 Comments on let's talk about LOVE: my video interview with Gary Kramer of Temple University Press as of 8/24/2015 2:55:00 PM
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By: Beth Kephart ,
on 10/17/2014
Blog: Beth Kephart Books (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Schuylkill River Heritage Area, Fairmount Water Works, William Penn Foundation, Schuylkill Banks, Schuylkill Boardwalk, Schuylkill River Development Corporation, Philadelphia, Add a tag
Blog: Beth Kephart Books (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Schuylkill River Heritage Area, Fairmount Water Works, William Penn Foundation, Schuylkill Banks, Schuylkill Boardwalk, Schuylkill River Development Corporation, Philadelphia, Add a tag
I walked the new Schuylkill Banks Boardwalk before my river talk last evening. The skies were expressive, pewter and blue, and from this 15-foot-wide float of walkway over the river herself, I saw the city as I had not seen her before. One of the many exhilarating advantages of this new and elevating space.
Another advantage? The joy of it. The Philadelphians who are coming to know, and to better see, their river. The sense that they don't take this for granted, and why should they? It wasn't all that long ago that the Schuylkill was sludge and noxious fumes, dead water, a place to be hurried past. Now, thanks to the Schuylkill River Development Corporation, Fairmount Water Works, Schuylkill River Heritage Area, the William Penn Foundation, the people I have met this week at the 2014 Pennsylvania River of the Year events, and many others, the Schuylkill is the place to be.
I've written here about the Heritage Area. I've written here about Fairmount Water Works. Today, my spotlight is on the SRDC.
Already offering kayaking and river tours, skateboard parks and overlooks, this brand-new boardwalk, and the idea of the bucolic in an urbanscape, the SRDC is hardly done with its quest to build "trails and greenway running along both banks of the Schuylkill River wherever possible between the Fairmount Dam and the Delaware River." Now planned or in play are the Bartram's Mile, destined to run along the west bank between Grays Ferry Avenue and 58th Street (and one-day connecting to the Grays Ferry Crescent by an abandoned railroad bridge); a pedestrian/biking west bank trail; and an east-side trail between the South Street Bridge and Christian.
All I know is words. The SRDC, the organizations mentioned above, the river advocates who work on behalf of tributaries, against run-off, for the future—they are the ones making the physical, even quantifiable difference to our city.
Find a way to thank them the next time you head off toward the river. You wouldn't be there without them.
0 Comments on Schuylkill Banks: remarkably effective and far from done as of 1/1/1900
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By: Beth Kephart ,
on 10/14/2014
Blog: Beth Kephart Books (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: FLOW: The Life and Times of Philadelphia's Schuylkill River, Schuylkill River, Schuylkill River Heritage Area, Fairmount Water Works, 2014 Pennsylvania River of the Year, Schuylkill Banks, Add a tag
Blog: Beth Kephart Books (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: FLOW: The Life and Times of Philadelphia's Schuylkill River, Schuylkill River, Schuylkill River Heritage Area, Fairmount Water Works, 2014 Pennsylvania River of the Year, Schuylkill Banks, Add a tag
We invite you to our celebration of the Schuylkill River, 2014 Pennsylvania River of the Year. This evening I'll be at Montgomery County Community College West Campus, in the Community Room in South Hall at 7 p.m. A second presentation will be held on Thursday Oct. 16 at 7 p.m. at the Trinity Center for Urban Life in Philadelphia. Both events are free.
I'm deeply grateful to the good people at Schuylkill River Heritage Area, Fairmount Water Waters, Schuylkill Banks, and Temple University Press, who have so generously spread the word. My talk, titled "River Dreams: History, Hope, and the Imagination," begins like this:
-->
Neither oil nor borders. Not religion. Not historical hurts or misremembered sleights. None of these. The next world wars, the experts say, will be fought over water. Over the three percent of the earth’s liquid total that pools in ponds and lakes, careens down channels, overruns crevasses, oozes from retreating glaciers, is barricaded up inside man-made reservoirs, is yanked up from the bottom of the well, is carried, jug to jug and bottle to hand toward cupped palms. Seeds, omnivores, carnivores, herbivores, feathered things—they need it. So do the pink dolphins and the mighty mollusks and the bulge-eyed toads and the little girl with the cascade of curls who has come to the banks with her heart set on adventure.
More can be found here.
0 Comments on River Dreams: tonight is the night (and so is Thursday) as of 1/1/1900
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