Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hell's Kitchen, also known as Clinton and Midtown West, is a neighborhood of Manhattan that includes roughly the area between 34th Street and 57th Street, from 8th Avenue to the Hudson River.
The neighborhood provides transportation, hospital and warehouse infrastructure support to the Midtown Manhattan business district. Its gritty reputation had depressed real estate prices relative to much of the rest of Manhattan until the early 1990s.
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. The rough and tumble days on the West Side figure prominently in Damon Runyon stories. The conflicts between Puerto Ricans and Irish formed the basis of West Side Story.
Once a bastion of poor and working-class Irish-Americans, over the last three decades of the 20th century and into the new century, Hell's Kitchen has undergone tremendous gentrification due to its proximity to Midtown. However, this has been a long and steady process; indeed, even as long ago as the 1960s. The 1969 edition of the Plan for New York City book authored by the City Planning Commission stated that people of modest means were being driven from the area by development pressures due to the Midtown location. Today, a great number of actors have resided in the neighborhood thanks to its proximity to the Broadway theaters and The Actors Studio training school.
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[edit] Geography
There are no hard and fast rules for defining a neighborhood since neighborhoods have neither formal legal standing nor do they constitute a census designated place. For the most part the neighborhood encompasses the ZIP codes 10019 and 10036. The post office for 10019 is called Radio City Station, the original name for Rockefeller Center on Sixth Avenue.
- Southern boundary: Hell's Kitchen and Chelsea overlap and are often lumped together as the West Side since they support the Midtown Manhattan business district. The traditional dividing line is 34th Street. The name Chelsea Clinton was used for a newspaper and a restaurant before the time of the famous first daughter[citation needed]. The transition area just north of Madison Square Garden and Pennsylvania Station includes the Jacob Javits Convention Center.
- Eastern boundary: The neighborhood overlaps the Times Square theater district to the east at Eighth Avenue. On its southeast border, it overlaps the Garment District also on Eighth Avenue. Here, two landmarks reside - the New Yorker hotel along with the dynamic Manhattan Center building (at the northwest corner of 34th Street and Eighth Avenue). Included in the transition area on Eighth Avenue are the Port Authority Bus Terminal at 42nd Street, the Pride of Manhattan Fire Station (from which 15 firefighters died at the World Trade Center), several theaters including Studio 54, the original home of Seinfeld's Soup Nazi, and the Hearst Tower.
- Northern boundary: The neighborhood edges toward the southern boundary of the Upper West Side, and 57th Street is considered by some to be the traditional northern boundary. However the neighborhood often is considered to extend to 59th Street (the southern edge of Central Park) where the avenue names change. Included in the 57th to 59th Street transition area are the Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle, Roosevelt Hospital, where John Lennon died in 1980 after being shot, and John Jay College. Sylvester Stallone was born and raised.
- Western boundary: The western boundary is the Hudson River.
[edit] Name
[edit] Alternative names
Hell's Kitchen has stuck as the name even though real estate developers have offered alternatives of Clinton and Midtown West or even the Mid-West. The Clinton name originated in 1959 in an attempt to link the name to the DeWitt Clinton Park at 52nd and 11th Avenue. Clinton was a former New York governor.
[edit] Hell's Kitchen
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, "gentrifiers," and eager real estate agents.
[edit] History
[edit] Irish tenements
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 dramatically, 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 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 1950s, 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.
[edit] West Side Story
During the 1950s, immigrants, notably Puerto Ricans, moved into the neighborhood. The conflict between the Irish and the Puerto Ricans is highlighted in the Broadway musical and movie West Side Story. The movie was filmed just north of the neighborhood during the demolition of the area that was to become Lincoln Center. In 1959, an aborted rumble between rival Irish and Puerto Rican gangs led to the notorious "Capeman" murders in which two innocent teenagers were killed.
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 of terror, when the gang lost most of its power after the RICO convictions of most of its principals in 1986. But, even though their level of violence and influence has been lowered significantly, the Irish Westies remain the most active criminal organization operating in the area.
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.[citation needed] Now largely free from street crime, it is, for the most part, removed from the degree of gangsterism which has long characterized the neighborhood.
[edit] Special Clinton district
Although the neighborhood is immediately west of New York's main business district, development lagged for more than 30 years because of strict zoning rules called the Special Clinton District designed to protect the neighborhood's low rise character.
When the third incarnation of Madison Square Garden at 50th and Eighth Avenue was torn down in 1968, New York developed a master plan calling for two to three thousand hotel rooms, 25,000 apartments, 25 million square feet of office space and a new super liner terminal in the neighborhood which it described as "blocks of antiquated and deteriorating structures of every sort." During this time a proposal was made to build the world's tallest building on the Madison Square Garden site and a massive convention center at 44th Street and the Hudson River.
Residents organized to fight the developments. In October, 1974 the Planning Commission approved the establishment of the Special Clinton District and Mayor Ed Koch moved the Jacob Javits Convention Center to 33rd and the Hudson River.
The District severely restricted development in the neighborhood for more than 20 years. The world's tallest building was not to rise and its Madison Square site was to remain a parking lot until 1989.
Provisions of the District:
The SCD was originally split into four areas:
- Preservation Area: 43rd to 56th Streets between 8th and 10th Avenues. R-7 density, 6-story height limit on new buildings, suggested average apartment size of two bedrooms. (This was a response to the fact that between 1960 and 1970 developers had torn down 2,300 family-sized units and replaced them with 1,500 smaller units.)
- Perimeter Area: 8th Avenue, 42nd and 57th Streets. Bulkier development permitted to counterbalance the downzoning in the preservation area.
- Mixed Use Area: 10th and 11th Avenues between 43rd and 50th Streets. Mixed residential and manufacturing. New residential development only permitted in conjunction with manufacturing areas.
- Other Areas: West of 11th Avenue. Industrial and waterfront uses.
The mixed use area and other area are now combined into "Other areas."
Building height in the Preservation Area cannot exceed 66 feet or seven stories, whichever is less.
Special permits are required for all demolition and construction in the SCD, including demolition of "any sound housing in the District" and any rehabilitation that increases the number of dwellings in a structure. New developments, conversions or alterations which create new units or zero bedroom units are required to contain at least 20% two bedroom apartments with a minimum room size of 168 square feet. Alterations which reduce the percentage of two bedroom units are not permitted unless the resulting building meets the 20% two bedroom requirement.
In the original provisions no building could be demolished unless it was found to be unsound.
[edit] Lean times
In the late 70's the destructive cult, The Church of Bible Understanding (COBU, previously the Forever Family) led by former vacuum cleaner repairman Stewart Traill, occupied many buildings along West 48th street.[4] For many long hours each night, members were compelled to go out into the streets and witness Traill's gospel,recruit new drones and return home late at night and endure long meetings led by Stewart (at which he would verbally abuse and humiliate COBU members to submit.) COBU was forced out of many of these units for unsafe living conditions. By day they would work hard cleaning carpets under the name Christian Brothers, now a nationwide company. All proceeds, from the carpet cleaning business and other jobs held by COBU members, were turned over to Traill. Members received $10 of their earnings back as allowance.
Hell's Kitchen hit on very hard times and was a drug infested neighborhood until the 1980s when it began to gentrify.
As gentrification pace increased, there were numerous reports of problems between landlords and tenants. The most extreme example was the eight story Windermere complex at the southwest corner of Ninth Avenue and 57th Street -- two blocks from Central Park.
Built in 1881, it is the second-oldest large apartment house in Manhattan. All the major New York newspapers covered the trials that sent the Windermere's managers to jail. According to former tenants and court papers, rooms were ransacked, doors were ripped out, prostitutes were moved in and tenants received death threats in the campaign to empty the building. Its landlord Alan B. Weissman made top billing in the 1985 edition of The Village Voice annual list, "The Dirty Dozen: New York's Worst Landlords, surpassed only by Traill." He too was never convicted of anything.
Most of the tenants eventually settled and moved out of the building. However, as of May 2006, 6 tenants remain -- with only one paying rent. Court orders have protected the tenants and the building has been allowed to remain in derelict condition even as the neighborhood had gentrified.
[edit] September 11th
While almost all fire stations in Manhattan lost fighters in the September 11 terrorist attacks, the hardest hit station was Engine 54, Ladder 4, Battalion 9 at 48th Street and Eighth Avenue which lost 15 firefighters. Given its proximity to Midtown, the station had specialized in skyscraper fires and rescues and is reputed to be the busiest station of any in all of New York City.
Its patch reads "Pride of Midtown" and "Never Missed a Performance." Memorials dot the station's exterior walls and a granite memorial is in a park to its north.
Developer Larry Silverstein made part of his fortune that eventually earned him the lease for the World Trade Center by building and managing buildings in the neighborhood. Silverstein's architect David Childs who is designing the Freedom Tower designed the Time Warner Center and Worldwide Plaza buildings in the neighborhood. Signature features of those towers are slated for the Freedom Tower.
[edit] Boom times
Developers have constantly attempted to chip away at the zoning rules.
The David Childs designed Worldwide Plaza established a beach head when it was built in 1989 at the Madison Square site between 49th and 50th Streets and between Eighth and Ninth Avenues.
The City under Michael Bloomberg relaxed zoning rules all over the city in the wake of the September 11 attacks. This led to a real estate building boom with Hell's Kitchen getting some of the biggest projects in the city including the Hearst Tower at 56th Street at Eighth Avenue.
An indication of how fast the neighborhood became hot was a 2004 transaction involving the Howard Johnson's Motel at 52nd and Eighth Avenue. In June Vikram Chatwal’s Hampshire Hotel Group bought the motel and adjoining SIR (Studio Instrument Rental) building for $9 million. In August they sold the property to Elad Properties for about $43 million. Elad, which owns Plaza Hotel, is in the process of building The Link, a luxury 44-story building.
[edit] Actors' neighborhood
Hell's Kitchen's gritty reputation has meant that housing prices there tended to be cheaper than elsewhere in Manhattan.
Given the lower costs and its proximity to Broadway theaters, the neighborhood is a haven for aspiring actors. Many famous actors and entertainers have resided there, ranging from Bob Hope and James Dean to Jerry Seinfeld, Madonna and Sylvester Stallone. This is due in large part to the Actors Studio on West 44th, which rose to prominence under Lee Strasberg and is famed for its method acting style used by such actors as Marilyn Monroe and James Gandolfini. Marlon Brando was actually a student of the Stella Adler Conservatory which is now located on West 27th.
Manhattan Plaza at 42nd Street between Ninth and Tenth Avenues was built in the 1970s to house the artists. It consists of two 46-story towers with 70 percent of the apartments set aside for performing artists.
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, Manhattan Center Studios at 311 West 34th 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. AV8 records is housed in the film center building.
Comedy Central's satirical program, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, is also taped in Hell's Kitchen — in the middle of the decade 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 old location at 54th and 10th is now home to The Colbert Report.
The headquarters of Troma studios is located in Hell's Kitchen.
The Alvin Ailey Dance Theatre opened on Ninth Avenue in 2006.
The Clinton Community Garden is a result of the actors living in the area. Since they mostly work at night in the local theatres, they took time to create a garden in a rubble-strewn lot. Eventually it became a selling point for gentrification, providing real estate agents with another selling point.
[edit] Transportation center
About every conceivable form of transportation, including horses, ocean going ships, and airplanes, has some form of infrastructure in the neighborhood.
- Automobiles - The Lincoln Tunnel connects New York City to New Jersey. Parking lots dot the neighborhood. Eleventh Avenue is lined with car dealerships, many of which claim to have the highest volume among all dealerships for their brands in the country.
- Buses - The massive Port Authority Bus Terminal is between 40th and 42nd Streets and 8th and 9th Avenues.
- Horses - Many of the horse drawn carriages from Central Park stay in stables just off the West Side Highway. It is not uncommon to hear the clip clop of horses in the neighborhood. There have also been calls for banning horses following collisions between horses and cars.
- Planes - An assortment of planes including the Concorde and SR-71 Blackbird are on display at the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum.
- Ships - Cruise ships, including the RMS Queen Mary 2 and Freedom of the Seas continuously dock at the New York Passenger Ship Terminal in the 48th to 52nd piers called Piers 88, 90, 92. The SS Normandie caught fire and sank its Pier 88 berth during World War II. Cruise ship horns are a common sound in the neighborhood. Several French restaurants opened on West 51st Street to accommodate traffic from the French Line. The piers originally built in 1930 are now considered small and so the city is considering sending cruise traffic to other locations. In addition to the passenger ships, the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum features the USS Intrepid (CV-11) Aircraft Carrier as well as an assortment of submarines and destroyers. Other ship operations in the neighborhood include the Circle Line at West 42nd and the New York Waterway ferry service.
- Trains - Hell's Kitchen begins just northwest of Penn Station. Amtrak trains going into the station run along a sunken corridor just west of 11th Avenue. It is not uncommon to hear their train whistles in the neighborhood. During the post-9/11 building boom, apartment houses have been built over sections of the train tracks. It is bounded on its eastern-most border by the Eighth Avenue subway line - NYC's western-most subway system.
[edit] Food diversity
Ninth Avenue is noted for its many ethnic restaurants. 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 has been going on since 1974 and is one of the oldest street fairs in the city. In addition to the usual American, Caribbean, Chinese, French, German, Greek, Italian, Irish, Mexican and Thai restaurants, there are multiple Afghan, Argentine, Ethiopian, Peruvian, Turkish, and Vietnamese restaurants. Restaurant Row is located on West 46th Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues.
[edit] Famous Natives and Residents
[edit] Natives
- Political Powerhouse Boss Tweed - West 51st Street.
- Cinderella Man Boxer James Braddock - West 48th just a few blocks from the Madison Square Garden venue where he fought.
- Actor Sylvester Stallone - July 6, 1946
- Actor Chevy Chase - October 8, 1943.
- Writer Mario Puzo
- Actor John Ross Bowie
- Actor George Raft
- Singer Tony Orlando
- Former NHL players and brothers Brian Mullen and Joe Mullen.
- Robert De Niro grew up in the Hell's Kitchen area of New York City much like many of his film characters.
- Actor Stephen Blackehart
- Basketball Star Joakim Noah
- Superhero Daredevil
[edit] Hell's Kitchen Mobsters
- Bill Dwyer
- Owney Madden
- Vincent "Mad Dog" Coll
- Eddie McGrath
- Mickey Spillane
- Eddie "the Butcher" Cummiskey
- Tom Devaney
- Jimmy Coonan
- Mickey Featherstone
- Bosco Radonjich
[edit] Famous Residents: Past and Present
- Singer, actress and TV personality Lisa Velez (Lisa Lisa) grew up in the neighborhood, to which she pays tribute in the title of her 1991 release, Straight Outta Hell's Kitchen.
- Singer Alicia Keys grew up in Hell's Kitchen.
- Illusionist and endurance artist David Blaine lived in Hell's Kitchen for three years at age 17
- Author and filmmaker James Gunn lived in Hell's Kitchen.
- Rev. Billy founder of The Church Of Stop Shopping developed his character while living in a church in Hell's Kitchen
- Frank Miller, writer and comic book artist, lives in Hell's Kitchen.
- Comic Lewis Black currently lives in Hell's Kitchen.
- Actor Josh Peck was born in Hell's Kitchen. He grew up there but moved to San Francisco in 1999 to pursue his acting career after being offered a role by Nickelodeon.
- Musician Stephan Jenkins of Third Eye Blind.
- Seinfeld co-creator, Larry David, lived in a Hell's Kitchen apartment across the hall from Kenny Kramer, inspiration for the Cosmo Kramer character.
- Actor Tom Hanks had an apartment in Hell's Kitchen in the late 1970s/early 80s.
- Actor Charlton Heston worked as a model in Hell's Kitchen from 1944 to 1947.
- Underground dwellers known as the Mole People supposedly live in the Amtrak Tunnels running under Hell's Kitchen on the west side, reportedly in an elaborate "shantytown" complete with electricity and running water. More information can be found in the documentary Dark Days or in the book The Mole People: Life in the Tunnels Beneath New York by Jennifer Toth
- Musician Tim Rose, lived on West 46th street, Restaurant Row, in Hell's Kitchen for a decade or more 80s-90s, and later recorded a song mentioning in as "Skid Row" in a song called "Because You're Rich".
[edit] In popular culture
Popular culture references to Hell's Kitchen tend to play up the rougher aspects of the neighborhood:
- Films and television shows largely set in Hell's Kitchen include the Irish-American gangster film State of Grace (1990), Sleepers (1996), and In America (2002), as is the 2007 television series The Black Donnellys, about a closely knit Irish-American clan living on the margins of the law. In the film "The Warriors", Hell's Kitchen is the residence of The Rogues gang.
- In music, New York progressive metal band Dream Theater's 1997 album, Falling Into Infinity (recorded at Avatar Studios in Hell's Kitchen) features an instrumental track 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 also features in the song "New York City" by rock band The Cult.
- In Ayn Rand's 1943 novel The Fountainhead, Hell's Kitchen is the birthplace of the character Gail Wynand, a rich newspaper mogul who came to power by taking advantage of the corruption, poverty, and squalor he experienced in his surroundings.
- In the Marvel Comics universe, Hell's Kitchen is the home base of the superheroes Daredevil and The Punisher, and the birthplace of Nick Fury.
- Hell's Kitchen features prominently in the video game Deus Ex and can be seen on the video game True Crime: New York City. It is also where the events in the noir video game Max Payne take place.
- In the game The Godfather, Hell's Kitchen is a location and home of the Cuneo crime family.
[edit] External links
- Clinton Chronicle (community newspaper)
- Clinton Community Garden
- Hell's Kitchen Directory & Blog
- Hell's Kitchen Neighborhood Association
- Hell's Kitchen, NYC
- Hell's Kitchen Online
- Photographs of Hell's Kitchen
