Kensington, Philadelphia

Kensington
Neighborhood of Philadelphia
Beatty's Mills Factory Building, a historic textile mill that is now the Coral Street Arts House, which provides artists with low-income housing[1][2]
Map
Country	United States
State	Pennsylvania
County	Philadelphia
City	Philadelphia
Area code(s)	215, 267, and 445

Kensington is a neighborhood in Philadelphia that belongs to Lower Northeast. As with all neighborhoods in the city, the lack of any official designation means the boundaries of the area vary between sources over time and are disputed among locals. Kensington, as most long-term residents view it, refers generally to the area consisting of Kensington, East (or Lower) Kensington, West Kensington, and Harrowgate. The adjacent Fairhill and Norris Square neighborhoods are more separate but may be included in Kensington; Fishtown and South (Olde) Kensington were historically included. The most conservative boundaries of the neighborhood, shown in the map below, are Front Street and 5th Street to the west, the Amtrak train tracks to the North, Trenton Avenue, the Trenton Avenue train tracks, and Frankford Avenue to the east, and Cecil B. Moore Avenue to the south.

Kensington is a primarily low income and working class area, and it experienced increasing poverty after the loss of its industries in the 1960s during deindustrialization. Disinvestment and general neglect has led to high abandonment in some sections of the neighborhood, catalyzing several grassroots actions from its residents.^{[citation needed]}

Kensington is home to a large population of Hispanic Americans, mainly Puerto Ricans and Dominicans, as well as African Americans and Irish Americans. Communities of Polish Americans and Asian Americans also make up the neighborhood. Additionally, there is a large population of homeless individuals. The neighborhood also recently has seen a large influx of primarily white young urban professionals and gentrification, particularly in Fishtown^[3] – which is no longer considered to be Kensington – and in Olde Kensington, Norris Square, and East Kensington.

Since the 1970s Kensington has been an open-air drug market due to the area's favorable conditions for one including empty factories and buildings where drugs could be stored, sold and used, easy access to the neighborhood for customers via SEPTA trains or I-95, and neglect by Philadelphia government and law enforcement.^[4] In the 1990s heroin was sold there as people addicted to prescription opioids came to the neighborhood looking for opioids.^[4] By 2020 the area had become a billion-dollar drug market with people openly injecting drugs and passed out on sidewalks.^[5] In 2024 mayor Cherelle Parker promised policies to address issues caused by the market including more law enforcement targeting low level drug offenses and not spending money for addict supervisory services that had been provided by the city in the past.^[6]