Philly City & Government Data
Category 4: What event-adjacent data does Philadelphia publish as open data? Spoiler: not nearly enough.
400+ datasets on OpenDataPhilly but zero event-specific data. No special event permits, no block party approvals, no festival calendars.
72 unique events found via Free Library RSS (8 feed types, 10 items each, deduped). Best structured event source in the city.
3,332 event food licenses + 279 carnival licenses in business license data — indirect but valuable signals of where events happen.
Part of the Reality project — full research index
Event Signal Landscape
What the city's data actually tells us about events:
Business Licenses
Free Library RSS
Opaque (no data)
Data Sources Tested
OpenDataPhilly — Full Catalog
Access Free, no auth
Datasets 400+
Event data None
NYC Transfer 2/5
Scanned all categories: Arts & Culture, Health & Human Services, Parks & Rec, Public Safety, Economy, Education. Found zero datasets for event permits, block parties, street closures, cultural programming, or festival calendars. City publishes facility locations but not what happens in them.
No event data published. NYC Open Data is significantly more mature.
L&I Business Licenses (CARTO SQL API)
Access Free, no auth
Format JSON via SQL API
Quality 4/5
Freshness Continuously updated
Endpoint phl.carto.com/api/v2/sql
NYC Transfer 2/5
Best indirect event signal. Carnival licenses reveal churches hosting festivals. Bingo licenses identify community gathering spaces. Event food licenses confirm scale of event activity. All geocoded with addresses.
| License Type | Total | Active | What It Reveals |
|---|
| Event Food Vendor | 3,332 | 14 | Confirms events exist (no location data) |
| Carnival | 279 | 0 | Churches & community orgs hosting festivals |
| Curb Market | 174 | ? | Outdoor market activity |
| Bingo | 170 | 10 | YMCAs, churches, schools, VFW posts |
| Small Games of Chance | 133 | ? | Community fundraiser events |
| Outdoor Food | 37 | ? | Outdoor dining / event vendors |
| Promoter Registration | 9 | 2 | Event promoters (most don't register) |
Mine for event signals — cross-reference carnival addresses with OSM places of worship
Free Library of Philadelphia — RSS Deep Dive
Access Free, no auth
Format RSS (XML), 8 feed types
Coverage 72 unique events (live)
Quality 5/5
Freshness Live (refreshes daily)
NYC Transfer 2/5
Category 1 found the RSS cap of 10 items. This deep dive discovered 8 active feed types yielding 72 unique events after dedup — a 7.2x improvement. Calendar API remains Cloudflare-blocked.
Feed Type Map
type=1Arts and Crafts Programs10
type=2Author Events10
type=3Workshops and Enrichment10
type=4Arts and Crafts Programs10
type=5Community Events10
type=6Live Performances10
type=7Author Events10
type=8Workshops and Enrichment10
type=9(empty)0
type=10Other Great Programs10
16 events appear in multiple feeds. Some feed types appear duplicated (1/4, 2/7, 3/8) but return different items.
Poll all 9 active feeds, deduplicate by URL — best structured event data in the city
Block Party Permits (Streets Department)
Access Application portal only
Portal stsweb.phila.gov/blockParty/
Public database None
NYC Transfer 2/5
Online application form for street event permits. No searchable database of approved permits. Fees: $25-$150. Requires 75% neighbor petition. Likely thousands per summer — the exact grassroots events that no platform captures.
FOIA opportunity — file Right-to-Know request for permit data
Special Event Permits (Office of Special Events)
Access Paper/email process
Contact OSE@phila.gov
Public database None
NYC Transfer 1/5
Covers carnivals, festivals, demonstrations, flea markets, concerts using city property. Entirely paper/email process. Plus 8 PPR park permit types (picnics, weddings, large events, venue rentals, etc.). None produce public data.
FOIA opportunity — both OSE and PPR permit data
PPR Programming / Finder App
Access React SPA (no public API)
URL phila.gov/parks-rec-finder/
Data feed None accessible
NYC Transfer 2/5
171 rec centers running programs daily but no data feed. Finder app is a React SPA behind CloudFront with no visible API. Featured events (Tai Chi, bird walks, food trucks at Love Park) shown on website but not in any structured format.
Significant blind spot — needs browser scraping or direct PPR outreach
311 Service Requests
Access Free via CARTO SQL API
Table public_cases_fc
Event categories Zero
80+ service categories covering infrastructure complaints. No event-related request types. "Parks and Rec Safety and Maintenance" covers facility maintenance, not programming.
Dead end for event discovery
The Big Picture
- Carnival licenses = churches that host events The 279 carnival licenses in business license data are tied to churches and community orgs (Christian Stronghold Baptist, St. Gregory the Illuminator, St. Anselm Church, Southeast Youth Athletic Assoc). This is the bridge between OSM's 1,552 places of worship and the subset that actually hosts public events.
- Free Library is the city's best event source 72 unique events across 54+ branches, in 8 categories (arts, author events, workshops, community events, live performances). Structured RSS with date, time, location, description. Free, no auth, live data.
- Permit data is the biggest gap Block parties, street festivals, park events, carnivals — thousands of permits processed annually but zero published as data. This represents the entire grassroots event landscape that no platform captures.
- PPR programming is a blind spot 171 rec centers with daily programs (sports leagues, senior activities, youth programs, fitness classes) but no structured data feed. The Finder app exists but its data isn't publicly accessible.
- FOIA is the unlock A Right-to-Know request to the Streets Dept (block party permits) and Office of Special Events (festival/concert permits) could be the single highest-value data acquisition for the entire source registry.
Technical Gotchas
Free Library RSS needs User-Agent: Python's urllib gets 403'd without a browser User-Agent header. curl works without one. Always set User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 in code.
Free Library calendar fully Cloudflare-blocked: All JSON API endpoints (/calendar/api/events, /calendar/events.json, etc.) return 403. RSS is the only viable automated access.
CARTO SQL API is wide open: Full SQL queries (SELECT, WHERE, GROUP BY, JOIN) against Philadelphia's data. No auth, no rate limits observed. Table: business_licenses. Incredibly useful.
Event food licenses have no location: The 3,332 event food vendor licenses have null address fields. They confirm event activity exists but can't tell you where.
NYC Transferability
| Source | Score | Notes |
|---|
| OpenDataPhilly scan | 3/5 | NYC Open Data has more event datasets (street activity permits, film permits) |
| Business Licenses | 2/5 | NYC has own license data, different schema |
| Block Party Permits | 2/5 | NYC publishes street activity permits — better than Philly |
| Special Events | 1/5 | Different agency (SAPO in NYC), different process |
| Free Library RSS | 2/5 | NYPL has own event system, pattern transfers |
| PPR Finder | 2/5 | NYC Parks has own system with better data access |
| 311 Data | 1/5 | Both cities have 311, both lack event categories |
Recommended Actions
- Free Library RSS scraper Poll all 9 active feed types, deduplicate by event URL. Yields ~72 events with title, date, time, location, description. Easiest win.
- Business license mining Query CARTO for Carnival, Bingo, Event Food, and Promoter licenses. Cross-reference Carnival addresses with OSM places of worship to identify churches-that-host-events.
- FOIA requests File Right-to-Know with Streets Dept (block party permits, last 3 years) and Office of Special Events (all permits, last 3 years). Could unlock thousands of grassroots events.
- BID website scraping Philadelphia's 15 Business Improvement Districts organize street events, holiday markets, and community programming. Scrape their event calendars.
- PPR Finder reverse-engineering Use browser dev tools to inspect the React SPA's network requests and find the data API powering the Finder.
Research conducted 2026-02-09 as part of the Reality project.
Full findings: category-4-city-government-data.md
• All Reality research