If there is a neighborhood success story in Manhattan, it is the story of Hell’s Kitchen. Once the most violent and downtrodden place in NYC, Hell’s Kitchen (also known as Midtown West and Clinton) has become a thriving neighborhood, known for restaurants, nightlife, and the community of performers that live there.
In the mid-1850’s, the construction of the 30th Street stop on the Hudson River Railroad began the expansion of tenement buildings to the Midtown West area. Poverty and the close quarters of immigrant workers in the area began the soon-to-be slum’s history of riots and violence.
Rivalries between the Irish Catholics, the Irish, and African-Americans “set the stage” for and inspired the well-known Hell’s Kitchen gang rivalry, the Sharks and the Jets.
By the 1930s, destruction of the worst of the neighborhood tenements and dismantling of the Ninth Avenue Elevated Train brought the start to neighborhood reform. Actors began to occupy the area due to its easy access to the Theatre District.
Residents of the area began to take reform into their own hands and drove out “hoodlums” by turning empty lots into parking lots. By the end of the 1950s, developers wanted a friendlier image for the neighborhood and began calling it Clinton.
“Hell’s Kitchen” is no longer descriptive of the community and character of the neighborhood. With the construction of Worldwide Plaza in the 1980’s and the forever expanding luxury market of apartment homes in the area, Hell’s Kitchen has become known for neighborhood charm and great restaurants and shops.
Though it goes by different names, Hell’s Kitchen/Clinton/Midtown West is an area of continuing growth of diversity.
