New Kensington · Arnold Lower Burrell · ZIP 15068
Updated Sept. 23, 2026
City hall · 301 11th St.
Police · Non-emergency, or 911 for an emergency
Council meeting nights aren’t in our data yet. See the city’s website ›
Library · Peoples Library, 880 Barnes St.
Trash, recycling and potholes: call city hall. We don’t have those schedules yet.
Sources: City of New Kensington, Westmoreland County, Peoples Library
New Kensington had 12,170 residents in the 2020 census, down from a peak of 25,146 in 1950, and a median household income of $49,063. It grew from the June 10, 1891, land sale, became a borough in 1892 and a city in 1934. The map data holds 5,990 buildings, 6,222 address points and 548 listed places in the city.
Sources: Census Bureau, newkensingtoncatholic.org, Wikipedia, Britannica
A New Kensington mailing address doesn’t always mean the city. In the map data, 217 places outside the city line give New Kensington as their town: 84 in Lower Burrell, 45 in Upper Burrell, 34 in Plum, 33 in Arnold and 21 in Allegheny Township. The counts on this page follow the city line.
Memorial Park. Main city park with large/small pavilions (resident rates $35–$50); seasonal Memorial Day–Labor Day; reservations 724-335-5421.
Valley Points Family YMCA. Regional YMCA with pools, group exercise, child care and youth sports; phone 724-335-9191.
New Kensington police reported 54 violent crimes to the FBI in 2024, or 4.6 per 1,000 residents, up from 40 (3.4 per 1,000) in 2023. That is the city's highest rate since 2019 (5.3). Property crime rose to 24.0 per 1,000 from 21.2, still lower than any year from 2001 through 2019. Police cleared 32 of the 54 violent crimes.
19 news-reported incidents in New Kensington are on the police blotter, the earliest from 2020.
New Kensington crime, in full › New Kensington on the police blotter ›
Source: FBI UCR via Jacob Kaplan
PennDOT recorded 70 crashes in New Kensington from 2005 through 2024 that killed or seriously injured someone. They killed 16 people and seriously injured 68.
Source: PennDOT crash data
Parnassus. The oldest part of town. The name dates to a 1769 land tract, and Fort Crawford (1777) stood at the mouth of Pucketa Creek here. It was an independent borough from 1872 until New Kensington absorbed it (1931 per Britannica; some sources say 1939). Trinity/Citizens General Hospital began here in 1912, and residents were rescued by rowboat in the 1936 flood.
Downtown / Fifth Avenue. The 1891 street grid of avenues running parallel to the river and numbered cross streets. It is a National Register historic district of 143 buildings (1891-1947) and now the five-block 'Corridor of Innovation', home to the Digital Foundry, Corner LaunchBox, WCCC, Voodoo Brewing and Fridays on Fifth.
Valley Heights. A New Kensington neighborhood. The Tarentum Bridge opened in 1952 as the 'Tarentum-Valley Heights Bridge'.
Mount Vernon. A quiet residential neighborhood in the southeast of New Kensington with about 497 residents. Most homes were built between 1940 and 1969.
Valley Camp. Listed as a New Kensington neighborhood.
Pine Manor. Listed as a New Kensington neighborhood, along with Parnassus, Mount Vernon, Valley Camp, Valley Heights and '40 Acres'.
40 Acres. Listed as a New Kensington neighborhood.
New Kensington Downtown Historic District. National Register district (1998) of 143 contributing buildings from about 1891-1947. Highlights include the Mellon Bank Building (1900), PNC Bank (1914), the Wear Ever Building (1914-15), the U.S. Post Office (1933), the Ritz (1921-22), the Datola (1942) and Columbus (1927) theaters, and a White Castle restaurant (c. 1921-28).
New Kensington Production Works Historic District (Alcoa works). A 60-acre National Register district (May 7, 1998) with 35 industrial buildings from about 1899-1947. It includes Alcoa's original plant, which operated from 1891 to 1971, and is documented as HAER PA-337.
New Kensington Advanced Manufacturing Park. The former Alcoa works and later Schreiber Industrial Park, straddling the New Kensington-Arnold line. It has been owned by a WCIDC-RIDC joint venture since 2023, and Re:Build Manufacturing operates there.
Alcoa Research Laboratory / AK Research Park. Henry Hornbostel's limestone laboratory (1928-30), decorated with aluminum doors and fittings and documented as HAER PA-295. It has been redeveloped as AK Research Park since 2011.
Mount St. Peter Church. An Art Deco and International-style Catholic church (1942, architect Enos Cooke). Its ceiling is gold tile modeled on Santa Maria Maggiore, and its altar is modeled on St. Peter's Basilica. The parish hosts the yearly Festa Italiana.
Memorial Park. A city park of at least 25 acres with veterans' monuments, including the original World War I memorial, an M5 anti-tank gun and an F-80 jet fighter.
Willie Thrower statue and historical marker. A statue (2006) at Valley High School's Memorial Stadium and a state historical marker (2003) honoring the NFL's first modern-era Black quarterback.
Digital Foundry at New Kensington. A 15,044-square-foot smart-manufacturing training and innovation center that opened in 2022. The orange building's sawtooth roof recalls the city's industrial heritage.
Ritz Theater / Voodoo at the Ritz. A historic 1920s theater in the downtown historic district, reopened in 2020 as Voodoo Brewing's brewpub.
Liberty Theater. A movie theater that opened May 2, 1921. It is documented by HABS/HAER in the Library of Congress.
Dattola Theatre (later Kensington Theatre). Opened in 1942 as the New Dattola Theatre, and briefly reopened as the Kensington Theatre showing classic double features.
Former Citizens General Hospital. A 5.5-acre hospital complex on land Alcoa donated in 1915. The hospital closed in 2000, and the building was vacant in 2026 amid a dispute with its out-of-state owner.
Knead Community Cafe. Western Pennsylvania's first pay-what-you-can community cafe, opened in 2017.
Fort Crawford site. Site of a 1777 Revolutionary War stockade at the mouth of Pucketa Creek. Excavations have turned up arrowheads.
George D. Stuart (Tarentum) Bridge. A 1,784-foot continuous-cantilever Pratt deck truss bridge carrying PA 366 across the Allegheny River. It opened in 1952.
C. L. Schmitt (New Kensington) Bridge. A 1927 truss bridge linking New Kensington with East Deer and PA 28.
The map data lists 548 places in New Kensington: 162 services, 90 shops, 77 places to eat and drink, 68 health care, 43 civic and safety, 30 auto and travel, 24 places of worship, 22 parks and play, 14 schools and learning, 11 arts and history and 7 places to stay. Its 242 named streets, 5,990 buildings and 6,222 address points are on the map too.
All 548 places in New Kensington, A to Z › Streets in New Kensington ›
Source: Overture Maps release 2026-08-19.0
1769
The name 'Parnassus' was used as early as 1769 for a 300-acre tract of land that later became the Parnassus section of New Kensington.
Source: Parnassus Pen
1872
The borough of Parnassus was incorporated. It stayed independent until New Kensington absorbed it decades later.
Source: Parnassus Pen
1890
The Burrell Improvement Company picked the level riverfront land south of Lower Burrell for a new city and named it 'Kensington'. The name was later changed to 'New Kensington' to avoid postal confusion with the Philadelphia neighborhood.
Source: Wikipedia
1891
Charles M. Hall's Pittsburgh Reduction Company moved its plant 17 miles up the Allegheny River to New Kensington. It was the company's first major aluminum plant outside Pittsburgh.
Source: Library of Congress
1891
By the end of 1891, New Kensington had 12 companies employing 4,000 people.
Source: rauhjewisharchives.org
1892
New Kensington was incorporated as a borough on Nov. 26, 1892.
Source: Wikipedia
1901
Charles M. Hall and Alfred E. Hunt founded the Aluminum Cooking Utensil Company in New Kensington on Oct. 24, 1901. It sold the Wear-Ever brand, and its top line was called 'Kensington Ware'.
Source: mycompanies.fandom.com
1912
Trinity Hospital, later Citizens General Hospital, was chartered on Dec. 12, 1912, at 427 Sixth Ave. in Parnassus.
Source: Tribune-Review archive
1913
Alcoa's New Kensington Works expanded across the city line into Arnold.
Source: Wikipedia
1915
Alcoa donated land at Fourth Avenue and Seventh Street in New Kensington for Citizens General Hospital.
Source: Tribune-Review archive
1927
The C. L. Schmitt Bridge (New Kensington Bridge) over the Allegheny River opened on June 29, 1927.
Source: structurae.net
1930
1931
New Kensington absorbed the neighboring borough of Parnassus.
Note: Britannica and TribLIVE say 1931; Wikipedia says 1939.
Source: Britannica
1934
New Kensington was incorporated as a third-class city.
Source: Britannica
1936
The March 1936 flood hit the whole Pittsburgh region. In Parnassus, residents were rescued from the second floors of their houses in rowboats.
Source: Tribune-Review archive
1940
1950
New Kensington reached its peak census population of 25,146.
Source: Wikipedia
1953
New Kensington native Willie Thrower became the first Black quarterback in the NFL's modern era on Oct. 18, 1953, playing for the Chicago Bears.
Source: Wikipedia
1958
Penn State's New Kensington Center opened in the First Ward School Building downtown. It moved to the former Parnassus Junior High in 1963 and to its Upper Burrell campus in 1966.
Source: newkensington.psu.edu
1965
The New Kensington-Arnold School District was formed on July 1, 1965. Also by 1965, Alcoa had opened its Alcoa Technical Center in Upper Burrell, having outgrown the Freeport Road lab.
Source: Valley News Dispatch (TribLive)
1966
The Aluminum Cooking Utensil Company, later Wear-Ever, moved its headquarters from New Kensington, its home since 1901, to Chillicothe, Ohio.
Source: mycompanies.fandom.com
1971
Alcoa closed its New Kensington Works, which had once employed nearly a quarter of the city. The Schreiber family bought the 66-acre site that year and marketed it as Schreiber Industrial Park.
Source: WESA
1998
The New Kensington Downtown Historic District (143 contributing buildings) and the New Kensington Production Works Historic District (the Alcoa works, listed May 7, 1998) were added to the National Register of Historic Places.
Source: Wikipedia
2000
Citizens General merged with Allegheny Valley Hospital in Harrison under West Penn Allegheny, and the New Kensington hospital closed. Its building was leased as an outpatient center.
Source: Tribune-Review archive
2009
Westmoreland County Community College opened its New Kensington center at 1150 Fifth Ave. in January 2009.
Source: westmoreland.edu
2010
Tom Guzzo resigned his city council seat to become mayor of New Kensington. He was still mayor in 2026.
Source: Tribune-Review archive
2018
The Redevelopment Authority of the City of New Kensington bought the former Alcoa works (Schreiber Industrial Park).
Source: Tribune-Review archive
2020
The 2020 census counted 12,170 New Kensington residents, 4,772 in Arnold and 11,758 in Lower Burrell.
Source: Wikipedia
2022
The Digital Foundry at New Kensington, a 15,044-square-foot smart-manufacturing lab on Fifth Avenue, held its grand opening on June 1, 2022.
Source: psu.edu
2023
In May 2023, Re:Build Manufacturing announced an $81 million project at the New Kensington Advanced Manufacturing Park that it said would create 300 jobs. In October, a WCIDC-RIDC joint venture completed its purchase of the park.
Source: pa.gov
2023
The C. L. Schmitt Bridge closed on July 24, 2023, for a $24.59 million preservation project and reopened on Sept. 1, ahead of Labor Day.
Source: unionprogress.com
2025
Re:Build finished upgrades to a 175,000-square-foot facility in the park, which straddles the New Kensington-Arnold line, and began manufacturing in early 2025.
Source: Valley News Dispatch (TribLive)
2025
In May 2025, Penn State trustees voted 25-8 to close seven Commonwealth Campuses, including New Kensington, after the spring 2027 semester. The campuses would admit no new students after fall 2025.
Source: Spotlight PA
2026
The Economic Growth Connection of Westmoreland ran a public visioning survey, 'PSU (Re)New Kensington Campus', on reusing the Upper Burrell campus. No buyer or decision had been announced.
Source: WPXI
Open listings for New Kensington are on the lost and found board ›
Lost or found a pet? What to do first ›
Sources: Census Bureau, newkensingtoncatholic.org, Wikipedia, Britannica, ReadyLink, vpfymca.org, FBI UCR via Jacob Kaplan, PennDOT crash data, Parnassus Pen, neighborhoodscout.com, Westmoreland County, Library of Congress, legion.org, Historical Marker Database, Valley News Dispatch (TribLive), cinematreasures.org, WPXI, kneadcommunitycafe.org, Tribune-Review archive, historicbridges.org, rauhjewisharchives.org, mycompanies.fandom.com, structurae.net, newkensington.psu.edu, WESA, westmoreland.edu, psu.edu, pa.gov, unionprogress.com, Spotlight PA, TribLive community news, Pittsburgh Regional Transit, Overture Maps.