Right NEast/Wrong NEast: Kensington blog references Far Northeast

Did you hear about the Far Northeast’s drug and prostitution problem?

Yep, since 2008, photographer Jeffrey Stockbridge has been capturing the drug and prostitution along Kensington Avenue. And while his blog makes for a great read, he’s got the geographer all wrong.

“An elevated train runs the full length of Kensington Avenue, approximately 3 miles into the far North East section of the city.”

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We’re not sure exactly what he’s going for here. Is that Kensington Avenue and its drug problem is part of the Far NE, or that the El runs into the Far NE? They’re both wrong, but we like to identify the problem before correcting it, so let’s break it down.

Kensington Avenue splits off from Frankford Avenue just above the Frankford Creek, which is the southern border of the Northeast.

Kensington, which is Stockbridge’s focus, is not in the Northeast at all.

The Far Northeast begins at PNE Airport at Grant Avenue, which is a full eight miles from Kensington Avenue and six miles from the Frankford Transportation Center where the El makes its final stop.

It looks like Stockbridge is wrong on a couple counts.

Why all the fuss over a photographer’s blog? As the drug scene in Kensington gets lots of coverage and Frankford continues efforts to revitalize its business corridor, it’s important to keep the facts straight. Not to say these problems don’t exist to some degree in all parts of the city, but inaccurate media coverage is no way to help solve a problem.

Outside media don’t care about the Northeast. We have all seen them misuse, misspell and mistake our neighborhoods and our streets, so we at NEast Philly wanted to do something about it. When they get it wrong, we set it right in a segment we like to call Right NEast/Wrong NEast.

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