Can Kensington Avenue in Philadelphia be saved? The notorious stretch of drug-infested streets of Kensington Avenue is shutting down temporarily this week to clean it up and vacate the homeless.
“The temporary closure is needed to ensure the safety of city outreach teams as they engage individuals during the final day of encampment resolution on Wednesday, May 8, during which individuals residing at the encampment have been notified to dismantle any tents and structures that pose public health and safety hazards and obstruct sidewalk passage,” the city wrote in a release. – CBS News
Look on YouTube for Kengsington Avenue videos; you might be shocked to see what it has become. It is sad and terrifying at times. What took Philadelphia so long to look into this? I don’t have an answer.
There are a couple of YouTube channels dedicated to nothing but Kensington Avenue. Here is one:
It’s so sad and heartbreaking. I can never get through a minute or two of these videos.
No Media!
During Kensington Avenue’s temporary closure, the media is not invited to participate in the cleanup. The organizers said this is for the privacy of the people involved.
Philadelphia has posted signs along Kensington Avenue warning that camping tents and other structures must be taken down. On Wednesday, a two-block stretch of the avenue near Allegheny will close for “encampment resolution.” pic.twitter.com/MYZUqA75kJ
— CBS Philadelphia (@CBSPhiladelphia) May 7, 2024
So what does this mean? They will take down the tents and tell the people to leave. Then what? They’ll probably return to the site the next day, or hell, probably that evening.
Like any place in America, Kensington was once a thriving hub. Philadelphia is rich with history, after all. Our founding fathers signed the United States Declaration of Independence document in Philly!
Also, when manufacturing was a thing in America, Kensington was the place to be, not to mention the iconic above-head train that runs along Kensington Avenue, propped up by blue girders, which took its place in monumental days of old.
Using Americana locations in movies is American as applied pie, and I know Kensington Avenue has been the backdrop for many films. However, I can only find two of them mentioned on IMBD: Twelve Monkeys and The Upside. Of course, Rocky Balboa runs along the train tracks in Philadelphia and on Kensington Avenue, right?
The Mayor
The first woman Mayor of Philadelphia is taking this task as one of her first major events since taking office a few months ago.
More than five months after Mayor Cherelle Parker took office, her administration is gearing up for its first major public action aimed at shutting down Kensington’s decades-old open air drug market.https://t.co/GQkwrGB46N
— Billy Penn (@billy_penn) May 7, 2024
The Democratic Mayor is doing what is typical for Democrats: clean it up and then do nothing as the drugs keep flowing and people keep using.
Simply closing Kensington Avenue for a day to clean up the streets physically will not provide long-term solutions. The Mayor is probably only doing this for visuals. She doesn’t mean business.
It’s well past time to do the hard stuff, but doing hard stuff isn’t in a Democrat’s DNA. Vote better next time, Philadelphia.
Feature Image: The Market-Frankford line on Kensington Avenue in Philadelphia/Public Domain/modified with Hibiscus filter in Canva Pro
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