Kensington’s new Peace Park turns old weapons into art and safe gathering space.
Philadelphia is in the midst of something rare: a sustained decline in gun violence. As of mid-August 2025, the city had recorded roughly 137 homicides, nearly 18% fewer than the same time last year, continuing a downward trend since 2022. Violent crime overall has slipped as well, though progress remains fragile.
In a city so often defined by its struggles, those numbers aren’t just data points. They are taking shape in small but powerful ways. Like a new community space in Kensington, where the story of loss is being rewritten as one of resilience.
This July, neighbors gathered for the grand opening of Peace Park, a modest but mighty green space tucked beneath SEPTA’s Kensington-Allegheny station. At its heart rises the Gun Violence Memorial Sculpture, a striking piece forged from firearms collected during 2024 buyback events. Guns that once tore through this community have been dismantled, reshaped, and reborn as a monument to peace.
The sculpture is the work of local artist Jacob C. Hammes, in collaboration with Philadelphia activist and author Shane Claiborne, the nonprofit Mural Arts Philadelphia, and neighborhood youth who learned welding and blacksmithing skills to help craft it. In a community too often associated with crime scenes, the project offered young people a chance to build – literally — something different.
Symbolism is woven into its design. Every 11 minutes, the sculpture illuminates, marking the average time between gun-violence deaths in the United States. Visitors can sit among its surrounding garden beds, benches, and pathways to reflect, grieve, or simply breathe a little easier in a neighborhood better known for its bruises than its beauty.
The park is already proving itself more than symbolic. Shortly after its opening, District Attorney Larry Krasner’s office chose the site as the backdrop to announce charges in a major Kensington drug-trafficking case. The move underscored Peace Park’s emerging role as a civic stage — a space where community safety is acknowledged, not just mourned.
None of this erases the challenges. Summer brought its usual spike in shootings, and longtime residents remain wary of how quickly progress can stall. Years of disinvestment, uneven policing, and political gridlock have left scars not easily healed. Across the country, federal crackdowns — ICE raids, military takeovers, “zero tolerance” sweeps — are being rolled out as theater, something to grab headlines and control the narrative.
Kensington could be forgiven for despair. Yet instead of waiting for solutions to trickle down from Washington, neighbors built something from the ground up: a garden, a sculpture, a statement. Peace Park stands as a counterpoint to fear, a reminder that safety grows not from the barrel of a gun but from the steady work of creation.
What comes next is up to the community. The garden needs tending, the programming needs support, and the momentum needs allies. But the vision is clear: if guns can become art, then perhaps art can become playground slides, bike frames, or even megaphones to demand stronger gun laws.
For now, it’s a small patch of green beneath the rumble of the El. Marking a moment when Philadelphia’s story on gun violence may be bending, at last, toward peace.
🌳 Kensington Peace Park ☮️
📍 3200 Potter Street, Kensington
🛠️🤝 How Peace Park Was Built
The Gun Violence Memorial Sculpture is the work of artist Jacob Christopher Hammes, activist Shane Claiborne, and Mural Arts Philadelphia. But the story doesn’t stop there: local teens learned welding and blacksmithing to help shape the centerpiece. “Swords into plowshares” isn’t just a biblical phrase here — it’s literal. Every detail, down to the timed illumination, is meant to transform a symbol of destruction into a vision of possibility.
🌱🕊️ Why Peace Park Matters
Community-led projects like Peace Park are part of a growing movement to reclaim public spaces in neighborhoods long associated with violence.
Research shows that greening vacant lots can reduce gun assaults by as much as 29% in surrounding blocks, while community art projects build trust and togetherness that formal policing often cannot.
In Kensington, where years of disinvestment and uneven enforcement have left deep wounds, a small green space may not seem like much. But it signals something powerful: a win for hope over fear. Residents are planting their own solutions here, starting with nature, art, and space to gather.
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