Photographer Tom Gralish’s visual exploration of our region
August 14, 2023: Yusuf Sarac rides with his “good bunny” helmet past the Moorestown Mall.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer / Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
A junior mechanical engineering major at Drexel University, Sarac says other drivers and pedestrians always wave to him as he rides from his Oaklyn, N.J. home to University City and Center City. “People’s reaction is just killing it. People love it,” he says. Plus, he adds, the bunny helmet cover “helps with the noise.”
Since 1998, a black-and-white photo has appeared every Monday in staff photographer Tom Gralish’s “Scene Through the Lens” photo column in The Inquirer’s local news section. Here are the most recent, in color:
August 7, 2023: Saying neither one was like Tom Sawyer, who tricked his friend Ben Rogers into finishing painting a fence in the Mark Twain novel, Woodrow Smith and Judith Pardun paint her fence together along busy Nicholson Road in Audubon, N.J. Both were glad they weren’t doing it during last month’s heat
wave.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer / Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
July 31, 2023: When returning to your car parked in Center City, a lesser of two evils question: Which is worse, finding a parking ticket on your windshield or noticing that your roof has become a pigeon restroom?Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer / Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
July 24, 2023: What’s left of the old Islander Raceway and Amusement Park, a longtime landmark at the foot of the George Redding Bridge on Rt. 47 just before Wildwood. Closed since 2002, it boasted six different go-kart tracks, bumper boats, mini golf and batting cages, and as the sign says, refreshments. Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
July 17, 2023: With its diversity of habitat — beach, dunes, ponds, forest, and marsh — Cape May Point is one of the best places to watch birds year-round. In addition to hawks, visitors can see breeding songbirds, waterbirds, terns, and passing migrants. When using the binoculars for a quarter on the Cape May Point State Park hawkwatch platform. just remember to look up.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
July 10, 2023: The Ferris Wheel on the midway at Independence Blue Cross RiverRink Summerfest is visible behind the stairway and ramp from the Market Street bridge to Penn’s Landing. Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
July 3, 2023: 18th century cannons point away from the Museum of the American Revolution at 3rd and Chestnut Streets. After the British occupation and the war, many old discarded canons and smaller carronades were embedded upright in the ground to protect structures and streets - much like the bollards we see today around most government and public buildings. Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
June 26, 2023: The morning pause in North Wildwood. Every day from April through September, every walker, runner, biker, and surrey rider stops at 11 a.m. as "The Star-Spangled Banner" is played on the boardwalk (followed by a Kate Smith recording of “God Bless America”). The playing of the anthem along the boardwalk, which stretches through Wildwood and North Wildwood, has happened as long as anyone can remember. Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
June 19, 2023: On the pedestrian walkway between the Cira Center and Amtrak’s William H. Gray III 30th Street Station. Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
June 12, 2023: Freshening up an arcade game on the boardwalk in Wildwood, ahead of the summer season at the Jersey Shore. Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
June 5, 2023: Maryanna Barr cuts the grass around the bird condominium tree trunk next to her Brooklawn, N.J home. She attributes the high bird occupancy rate — all her bird houses have residents — to her not feeding them. “I only do rooms, not board,” Barr says.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
May 29, 2023: Visitors watch the official welcome film of Philadelphia, playing for free in the Independence Visitor Center. The eight minute video runs all day on a continuous loop, previewing the city's sights and sounds in an open-walled theater. Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
May 22, 2023: A banner along Spring Garden Street reminded Philadelphians of Primary Election Day. There were a half dozen candidates running for mayor, and seven times that many seeking one of the 17 seats on City Council. Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
May 15, 2023: A PATCO Speedline train headed into Philadelphia from New Jersey on the Ben Franklin Bridge passes a campaign sign on the side of a building in Old City. Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer / Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
May 8, 2023: The Pennsylvania Railroad War Memorial (1950, installed 1952) by Walker Kirtland Hancock n the lobby of 30th Street Station known from the opening scene of the 1985 Harrison Ford and Kelly McGillis film “Witness.“ The 39-foot monument is dedicated to the 1,307 Pennsylvania Railroad employees who died in World War II. It is known as “Angel of the Resurrection,” depicting the Archangel Michael lifting a lifeless soldier in his arms, his wings pointing directly to heaven as he frees the soldier from the flames of battle.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
May 1, 2023: From left, Two Liberty Place (1990), Alexander Milne Calder's sculpture of William Penn (1894) atop City Hall (1901), the PSFS Building (1932, now the Loews Philadelphia Hotel), and the Jefferson Center (1984, formerly known as the Aramark Tower and One Reading Center) are seen between the buildings along Market Street East.Read moreTom Gralish / Staff Photographer
