Thom Nickels

That tiresome holiday, Halloween, is approaching again. Halloween is a child's idea of what is scary, and it will be shoved in our faces on every door and lamppost in the city.

You won't see Philadelphia's Girard Estates on any historic house tours despite the fact that it may belong there. The reason for this, it may be assumed, is because many Philadelphians see the name Stephen Girard as meaning a college, rather than a real person in history.

While spitting in public happens all over the world, the unpleasant custom has always been a special problem in Philadelphia.

A turquoise-colored sign on the door of my bank, WSFS, announcing closure on October 12, 2026, because of “Indigenous Peoples' Day,” inspired me to beat a path to a teller, even though I was not there for banking.

Who is the skinny troubadour with tousled bed hair who plays the harmonica and puts lyrical poetry to music? That would be Bob Dylan, born Robert Zimmerman in 1941 and raised Jewish in a Minnesota family.

The regular manufacture of No Kings Day in Center City Philadelphia is becoming a calendar event along the lines of the Philly Naked Bike Ride.

How did an obscure, violence-ridden Latin American cult infect the papacy of two modern-day Catholic popes?

According to Indian sages.

The restaurant industry has changed significantly in the last few years. When I last worked as a part-time waiter in […]

The food delivery robots canvassing Center City streets deserve our admiration and attention. As one who opposes illegal immigration, and even some legal kind of immigration (from underdeveloped countries), I look on these bots as Pope Leo looks on the hordes of unruly migrants crashing the borders of Europe: In other words, I welcome the stranger.