My father’s family, originally from Dusseldorf, Germany, settled in Manayunk before the Civil War, so I grew up hearing about […]
About: Thom Nickels
Thom Nickels: Student journalism in the 1970s at The New Price Review
A lot has changed in journalism in the last fifty years
By Thom Nickels
Thom Nickels: Where medicine and spirituality meet
Mark Twain was half in love with her and called her “the most interesting woman that ever lived, and the […]
Thom Nickels: The tightly controlled life of an air traffic controller
In 1970, when I lived in Boston, I knew an air traffic controller who lived in a basement apartment on […]
Thom Nickels: The last Romanian princess
I’m on Amtrak’s Pennsylvanian traveling from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh to check out the legacy of the last Romanian Princess. Arranging […]
Thom Nickels: Where do dead journalists go?
Where do dead journalists go? Presumably they go where everyone else goes, but in the competitive fishbowl world of Philly […]
Thom Nickels: Picturing sainthood
The photographer says that Mother Teresa “had the ability to see goodness in each person without judgment.”
By Thom Nickels
Thom Nickels: Daniel P. Mannix and Peter the Python
The Mannix farm was a legendary place in an area that was then called Bacton Hill. It was known as […]
Thom Nickels: Port Richmond elegy
There’s not a single vacant space in my Riverwards Fishtown-Port Richmond neighborhood that hasn’t been rezoned for rehab by developers. […]