This Thursday is a good night to get your science on in West Philly. Guion “Guy” Bluford, the first African American in space and a West Philly native, will speak at the University of the Sciences’ McNeil Science and Technology Center (43rd and Woodland) at 7 p.m.as part of the Philadelphia Science Festival.

Bluford participated in four space shuttle missions between 1983 and 1992. He graduated from Overbrook High School and received a B.S. in aerospace engineering from Penn State before completing graduate work at the Air Force Institute of Technology.

After the talk star gazers are welcome to grab a blanket and head out to Clark Park where amateur astronomers, telescopes in tow, will be on hand to help you folks navigate the cosmos.

The observatories at Drexel and Penn will also open their doors for this astronomical extravaganza. Drexel’s Joseph R. Lynch Observatory (3141 Chestnut St.) will open at 8 p.m. and Penn’s David Rittenhouse Laboratories Observatory (209 S. 33rd St.) open at 8:30 p.m.

From Kathleen Turner of Friends of Clark Park:

Weather forecasts call for rain by mid-morning, so Youth Soccer has been canceled for today. Have a safe and happy weekend — see you next Saturday!

Volunteers are needed in West and Southwest Philadelphia to help drive cancer patients to treatment. You need access to a vehicle, a valid driver’s license and current insurance. That’s it. For more information call 1-800-227-2345.

West Philadelphia icon Miriam W. Crawford, who along with her husband Bill were stalwarts of the political left in the city for decades, died on Saturday in a Germantown nursing home. She was 94.

Crawford retired as the director of the Temple University archives in 1986. She is the former coordinator of the Philadelphia chapter Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. She marched against the war in Vietnam and was active in causes up until last year, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Miriam and her husband Bill Crawford, who was the great grandson of an escaped slave, were well known in West Philadelphia for their commitment to leftist causes. Both were committed Marxists and their dining room in the Parkside neighborhood was a gathering spot for social activists. The dining room walls were covered with political memorabilia that spanned generations. The walls were so intriguing that curators removed the political art work when the Crawfords moved and recreated it for a Philadelphia Folklore Project an art exhibition in 2005. Bill died in 2002 at the age of 91.

Bill Crawford ran the New World Book Fair bookstore at 113 S. 40th St. from 1961 to 1974. The store specialized in Marxist and African American books.

Miriam and Bill were married in 1949. They are survived by a daughter, Fanny Jean Crawford, a son, Douglass Barnes Crawford, and three grandchildren.

UC Green is teaming up with the Philadelphia Orchard Project to raise money to plant fruit and nut trees along the streets of West and Southwest Philadelphia. They hope to raise enough money to plant about 100 trees by the fall. The fruit and nuts from the trees would be available to everyone. But don’t worry they are not going to choose trees that will leave a big mess on the streets and sidewalks.

The project has a page on the fundraising site Kickstarter.com. Here is the link. Donations start at just $1.

Here is their video pitch…

Demolition crews knocked down the last couple of walls at the Windermere Court Apartments at 48th and Walnut Streets on Saturday. Fire devastated the building on January 10 and led to a protracted battle between residents, the building’s owners and the city. A class action lawsuit against the building’s owners, David and Sam Ginsberg, was filed in February.

There has been no announcement about plans for the half-block lot where the buildings once stood.