Kensington History Project Founders

Torben Jenk moved to Kensington in 1983, another newcomer in a tradition of immigration that stretches back over 300 years. Having spent some teenage years living in the original Kensington—just blocks from Kensington Palace in London, the royal palace of King William III and his wife, Mary, designed by Christopher Wren in 1689—and listening to too much royal history, he now finds himself more interested in the industrious genius of the early settlers, the social struggles demonstrating the emergence of American society and the variety of voices which animate the neighborhood today. Visit Torben Jenk's newest project, his website at: http://www.workshopoftheworld.com/  where you can view over 150 industrial sites in Philadelphia, PA, from  "Workshop of the World" (1990) and "Workshop of the World Revisited" (2007), and other sources, organized in 17 neighborhoods by industry classification or alphabetically.

Kenneth W. Milano, a life-long resident of Kensington, completed a 4-year apprenticeship at the Philadelphia Naval Yard as a marine painter, graduated from Temple University, cum laude in American History, and for eight years taught ESL & GED Classes at Kensington's Lutheran Settlement House. Today he is a professional researcher for history and genealogy, as well as a cataloguer of rare books and manuscripts for the firm of Michael Brown Rare Americana. He has a large collection of printed books, manuscripts and ephemera connected to Kensington history. Ken has also spent untold hours researching in ancient deeds and maps to clarify the development patterns that shaped this community. He has published three books on Kensington's history all issued by The History Press (Kensington & Fishtown; The History of Penn Treaty Park; & The History of the Kensington Soup Society). He has also written an unpublished biography of Anthony Palmer, the retired sea captain who chose the name Kensington in 1730 for the 191½ acres he was subdividing just two mile up the Delaware River from Market Street. Through his teaching of Adult Basic English at the Lutheran Settlement House, Ken has also come to know many recent immigrants from Albania who are settling in Fishtown and Kensington. His interest in neighborhood history and culture has expanded to include these newest Kensingtonians, perhaps especially so since 2000, when his marriage to Dorina Lala made him an honorary member of the Albanian immigrant community. He still lives in Kensington with his wife Dorina and two sons, Francesco and Salvatore.

Rich Remer started his research on Kensington as a genealogy project with his retired father and now continues beyond the names and dates to ask “how did they make a living and what sort of lives did they lead?” Rich is especially interested in the years prior to 1850 and has taken the lead in reconstructing the early fishing families of Fishtown, the shipwrights along the Delaware and the early industrial revolution in Kensington generally. He is also keen to introduce Kensingtonians, and others, to the never-ending local parlor game called “What are the Boundaries of Kensington?” Rich's research is on the German Families of Kensington as well as the Shipwrights of Kensington. Rich descends from those 18th Century Kensingtonians, in his case a ship caulker.