Just another day in Kensington

We took a different route on this trip to Kensington, getting off on the York/Dauphin stop on the Market/Frankford line. Music with a Latino flare blared from the streets below, as if we were about to enter some kind of fiesta.

It seems to be a reoccuring theme with our trips: we get off the el, look around with dazed glares, and then decide which direction we want to head in. Needless to say, we usually get odd looks from the residents passing by. As we walk around this unfamiliar area, we venture past where the music was coming from. A line of stores, in what was probably the darkest section under the el, had their goods lining the streets, with the owners taking their postions near the doorways, and in lawn chairs on the sidewalk. The music seemed to be coming from one of the clothing stores, that had half-dressed mannequins lining a table on the sidewalk. Venturing around the area, where the multiplex of Kensington high schools is located, there is a more vacant feel to this section of town, almost consumed by the multiple warehouses and empty lots that surround the residential section off the main drag. After wandering this new section of town, we head back to more familiar territory. Hopping back on the el, we get off two stops down, at the Allegheny station. Kensington Avenue has become our second home; we don't get the same glares that we would in any other section of town. Unless, that is, if we rip out the cameras. Yet, there is always someone that wants to strike up a conversation, or is less then nervous to get in front of the camera, or worse yet, try to play with it!! As a fight breaks out between two women who are obviously under the influence of something, we notice people stopping in there tracks to observe; cars coming to a halt, people looking out the doors of stores. As soon as it passes by, life goes back to normal, as if nothing happened. Somehow, this incident didn't seem to phase us either.