Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan

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This article is about the neighborhood in New York City; for other uses, see Hell's Kitchen (disambiguation).

Hell's Kitchen (also known as Clinton) is a neighborhood of New York City that includes the area between 34th Street and 57th Street, from 8th Avenue to the Hudson River. The north and south boundaries, however, are disputed; author Lloyd R. Morris defines the northern boundary as 40th Street in his book, Incredible New York (ISBN 0405069286).

Throughout its history, Hell's Kitchen has figured prominently in the New York City underworld, especially in Irish-American organized crime circles. Gangsters like Owney Madden, bootleggers like Bill Dwyer, and Westies leaders Jimmy Coonan and Mickey Featherstone were Hell's Kitchen natives.

Once a bastion of poor and working-class Irish-Americans, in recent years Hell's Kitchen has undergone tremendous gentrification, due to its proximity to the theater district and the financial center of Manhattan.

1 Name
2 History
3 A vibrant neighborhood
4 Trivia
5 External links

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Name

As far back as 1959, real-estate developers hoping to accelerate gentrification began using the name Clinton, taken from New York governor DeWitt Clinton, who once owned a farm in the area.

Several different explanations exist for the original name. An early use of the phrase appears in a comment Davy Crockett made about another notorious Irish slum in Manhattan, Five Points. According to the Irish Cultural Society of the Garden City Area:

In 1835, [when] Davy Crockett said, "In my part of the country, when you meet an Irishman, you find a first-rate gentleman; but these are worse than savages; they are too mean to swab hell's kitchen," he was referring to the Five Points.[1]

According to an article by Kirkley Greenwell, published online by the Hell's Kitchen Neighborhood Association:

No one can pin down the exact origin of the label, but some refer to a tenement on 54th as the first "Hell's Kitchen." Another explanation points to an infamous building at 39th as the true original. A gang and a local dive took the name as well.... a similar slum also existed in London and was known as Hell's Kitchen. Whatever the origin of the name, it fit.[2]

Local historian Mary Clark adds a probably-apocryphal anecdote when she states the name:

...first appeared in print on September 22, 1881 when a New York Times reporter went to the West 30s with a police guide to get details of a multiple murder there. He referred to a particularly infamous tenement at 39th Street and 10th Avenue as "Hell's Kitchen," and said that the entire section was "probably the lowest and filthiest in the city." According to this version, 39th Street between 9th and 10th Avenues became known as Hell's Kitchen and the name was later expanded to the surrounding streets. Another version ascribes the name's origins to a German restaurant in the area known as Heil's Kitchen, after its proprietors. But the most common version traces it to the story of Dutch Fred The Cop, a veteran policeman, who with his rookie partner, was watching a small riot on West 39th Street near 10th Avenue. The rookie is supposed to have said, "This place is hell itself," to which Fred replied, "Hell's a mild climate. This is Hell's Kitchen."[3]

Today, most residents of the area, and most New Yorkers in general, refer to the area as "Hell's Kitchen," with "Clinton" being the name favored by the municipality.

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History

The beginnings of the neighborhood that would become known as Hell's Kitchen start in the mid 19th century, when immigrants from Ireland, most of whom were refugees from the Great Potato Famine began settling on the west side of Manhattan in shantytowns along the Hudson River. Many of these immigrants found work on the docks nearby, or along the railroad which carried freight into the city along 11th avenue.

After the American Civil War the population increased exponentially, as tenements were erected and increased immigration added to the neighborhood's congestion. Many in this poverty stricken area turned to gang life and the neighborhood soon became known as the "most dangerous area on the American Continent." At the turn of the century, the neighborhood was controlled by the violent Gopher Gang, led by the notorious Owney Madden.

The violence escalated during the 1920s, as Prohibition was implemented. The many warehouses in the district served as ideal breweries for the bootleggers and rumrunners who controlled the illicit liquor. Gradually the earlier gangs such as the Hell's Kitchen Gang were transformed into organized crime entities and Owney Madden, the one time leader of the Gopher Gang, became one of the most powerful mobsters in New York.

After the repeal of Prohibition, many of the organized crime elements moved into other rackets, such as illegal gambling and union shakedowns. The postwar era was characterized by a flourishing waterfront, and work as a longshoreman was plentiful. By the end of the 1950's, however, the implementation of containerized shipping led to the decline of the West Side piers and many longshoremen found themselves out of work. In addition, the construction of the Lincoln Tunnel had devastated much of Hell's Kitchen to the south of 39th street.

By 1965, Hell's Kitchen was the home base of the Westies, a deeply violent Irish-American crew aligned with the Gambino crime family. It was not until the early 1980s that widespread gentrification began to alter the demographics of the longtime working-class Irish-American neighborhood. The 1980s also saw an end to the Westies reign, when the gang collapsed after the RICO convictions of most of its principals in 1986.

Today Hell's Kitchen is a mixed neighborhood of yuppies, artists, hipsters, longtime Irish, Puerto Rican, and Dominican residents, and an increasing number of gays. Now largely free from violent crime, it is far removed from gangsterism which has long characterized the neighborhood.

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A vibrant neighborhood

Hell's Kitchen is presently known as one of the most popular neighborhoods for dining in the city, both by locals and tourists. One of the city's biggest street fairs, the Ninth Avenue Association's International Food Festival, stretches through the Kitchen from 37th to 57th Streets every May, usually on the third weekend of the month.

The neighborhood is also home to a number of broadcast and music-recording studios, including the CBS Broadcast Center at 524 West 57th Street (also the home of Black Entertainment Television's 106 & Park show), Sony Music Studios at 460 West 54th Street, and Right Track Recording's Studio A509 orchestral recording facility at West 38th Street and 10th Avenue. The syndicated Montel Williams show is also taped locally at the Unitel Studios, 433 W. 53rd Street, between Ninth and Tenth Avenues.

Comedy Central's satirical program, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, is also taped in Hell's Kitchen — recently trading one local studio for another. In the summer of 2005 it moved from its quarters at 54th Street and 10th Avenue to a new studio in the neighborhood, at 733 11th Avenue, between 51st and 52nd Streets.

The CUNY branch John Jay College of Criminal Justice is located in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood.

The headquarters of Troma studios is located in Hell's Kitchen.

The neighborhood is served by zip codes 10019 and 10036.

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Trivia

Actor Sylvester Stallone was born in Hell's Kitchen on July 6, 1946 to Sicilian immigrant parents.
Mario Puzo was born in Hell´s Kitchen
Actor John Ross Bowie is from Hell's Kitchen.
Actor George Raft was a Hell's Kitchen native.
Singer & Actress Lisa Velez is a Hell's Kitchen native.
Singer Alicia Keys grew up in Hell's Kitchen.
In the fictional Marvel Universe, Hell's Kitchen is the protectorate of Daredevil and the birth place of Nick Fury.
Hell's Kitchen features in the song "New York City" by rock band The Cult.
Dream Theater's Falling Into Infinity, recorded at Avatar Studios in Hell's Kitchen, features a song named Hell's Kitchen, an obvious reference to the location of the studio.
Aerosmith's Lightning Strikes features the lyric "The lid's gonna blow up in Hell's Kitchen". The video includes the band as street toughs in the back alleys of Hell's Kitchen.
Hell's Kitchen features prominently in the video game Deus Ex.