Mayor Parker marked her 1,000th day in office with a ground-breaking at Kensington’s McPherson Square library

Mayor Cherelle L. Parker marked her 1,000th day in office by breaking ground on a $21.7 million improvement to the McPherson Square library, a symbol of the Kensington opioid crisis, to send the message that her administration’s “commitment to this community is firm.”

“The Kensington that I’m standing in today — this is not the Kensington that I walked in January of 2024. Quality of life is improving here,” Parker said at a news conference on Monday. “People are beginning to see that we are at least trying to make a difference, and we are not acting as if we we don’t see what’s happening there. We’re looking it straight in the eye.”

Although she did not focus on Kensington while campaigning for mayor in 2023, Parker has, since taking office, embraced the challenge of addressing gun violence and substance abuse in the neighborhood, which has made international headlines, and eradicating what’s often referred to as the largest open-air drug market on the East Coast. She rode the El to an event at a Kensington middle school to mark her first 100 days in office.

The McPherson Square park and library became a highly visible marker of the crisis in the mid-2010s. People in addiction were a constant presence in the 6-acre park, near Kensington Avenue and Orleans Street. Library staff learned how to administer Narcan, which reverses overdoses.

» READ MORE: In battered Kensington, signs of progress

Parker ran on a tough-on-crime platform, and her approach to Kensington has featured a mix of police-focused tactics and novel strategies aimed at getting people off the streets and into recovery.

She cut city funding for syringe exchange services in her first budget, and her election effectively ended the city’s efforts to open a supervised drug consumption site, a priority of former Mayor Jim Kenney. The police department has doubled the number of officers who patrol the area, First Deputy Police Commissioner John Stanford said Monday.

Parker has also launched a Neighborhood Wellness Court program, which is designed to encourage alleged offenders to choose addiction services and avoid criminal proceedings, and she has launched the Riverview Wellness Village, a 20-acre recovery house in Northeast Philadelphia where more than 200 people live.

» READ MORE: A ‘whole new life’ at Riverview: Inside Philadelphia's city-owned drug recovery home

“People are beginning to see that we are at least trying to make a difference, and we are not acting as if we don’t see what’s happening,” Parker said. “We’re looking it straight in the eye and trying to figure out a way to make sure that we are solving a problem.”

Since Parker took office, the Kensington-based 24th police district has seen 48% decrease in violent crime, a 63% decrease in shootings, and a 47% decrease in homicides, Stanford said Monday.

After peaking in the wake of the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, rates of violent crime and homicide have fallen across the country. This year, homicides in Philadelphia are on pace for a 60-year low.

People using drugs are still a common sight in Kensington, and crime rates in the neighborhood remain higher than the city as a whole, a reality Parker readily acknowledges. And her approach has drawn criticism from some harm reduction advocates and public health experts, who contend that heavy-handed policing can be counterproductive to saving the lives of people in addiction.

But few doubt Parker’s commitment to cleaning up the neighborhood, and the prospect of a revitalization of the dilapidated library, which was built in 1917 with a copper dome and classical columns, could be a potent symbol.

The renovation of the McPherson Square library is being funded through Rebuild, the parks and recreation center renovation program championed by Kenney and supported by Parker when she was on Council. Rebuild is one of three programs Kenney proposed while pitching the city’s tax on sweetened beverages, which was approved in 2016 and is more commonly known as the soda tax.

The first phase of the library renovation, which included a new roof and a restored dome, was completed in 2025. Parker on Monday broke ground on the second phase, a “full-gut renovation” with “new HVAC, plumbing, electrical, fire alarm, and security systems” and many other improvements, according to the city’s Capital Program Office.

The project will take two years. In the meantime, the Free Library of Philadelphia will set up a temporary location on Allegheny Avenue, said Kelly Richards, library’s president and director.

City Councilmember Quetcy Lozada, whose 7th District includes much of Kensington, said she spoke to Parker about addressing the long-neglected neighborhood’s challenges in 2023, and recalled being “skeptical” that Parker would follow through on her promises as mayor.

“She made a commitment on that day that if she were to become the mayor of this city, that she would make Kensington and this community a priority,” Lozada said at the new ground-breaking, “and she has stood by that commitment and that promise.”

Staff writer Anna Orso contributed to this article.