Early history and development in Hell's Kitchen at 52nd Street On the island of Manhattan when Europeans first saw it, the Great
Kill formed from three small streams that united near present-day Tenth Avenue and 40th Street, and then wound through the low-lying Reed Valley, renowned for fish and waterfowl, emptying into the
Hudson River at a deep bay on the river at the present
42nd Street. The name was retained in a tiny hamlet called Great Kill, which became a center for carriage-making. The upland to the south and east became known as Longacre, the predecessor of
Longacre Square, now
Times Square. One of the large farms of the colonial era in this neighborhood was that of Andreas Hopper and his descendants, extending from today's 48th Street nearly to 59th Street and from the river east to what is now
Sixth Avenue. One of the Hopper farmhouses, built in 1752 for John Hopper the younger, stood near
53rd Street and Eleventh Avenue. Christened "Rosevale" for its extensive gardens, it was the home of the War of 1812 veteran, Gen. Garrit Hopper Striker, and lasted until 1896, when it was demolished. The site was purchased for the city and naturalistically landscaped by Samuel Parsons Jr. as
DeWitt Clinton Park. In 1911,
New York Hospital bought a full city block largely of the Hopper property, between 54th and 55th Streets, Eleventh and
Twelfth Avenues. public housing buildings between West 54th and West 56th Streets, and Tenth and Eleventh Avenues, part of the
New York City Housing Authority A lone surviving structure from the time this area was open farmland and suburban villas is a pre-1800s carriage house that once belonged to a villa owned by former Vice President and New York State governor
George Clinton, now in a narrow court behind 422 West 46th Street. From 1811 until it was officially demapped in 1857, the diminutive Bloomingdale Square was part of the city's intended future. It extended from 53rd to 57th Streets between Eighth and Ninth Avenues. It was eliminated after the establishment of Central Park, and the name shifted to the junction of Broadway,
West End Avenue, and 106th Street, now
Straus Park. In 1825, the City purchased for $10
clear title to a
right-of-way through John Leake Norton's farm, "The Hermitage", to lay out
42nd Street clear to the river. Before long, cattle ferried from
Weehawken were being driven along the unpaved route to slaughterhouses on the East Side.
Unity with the city and deterioration There were multiple changes that helped Hell's Kitchen integrate with New York City proper. The first was construction of the
Hudson River Railroad, whose initial leg – the to
Peekskill – was completed on September 29, 1849, By the end of 1849, it stretched to
Poughkeepsie and in 1851 it extended to
Albany. The track ran at a steep grade up Eleventh Avenue, as far as
60th Street. The formerly rural riverfront was industrialized by businesses, such as
tanneries, that used the river for shipping products and dumping waste. The neighborhood that would later be known as Hell's Kitchen started forming in the southern part of the 22nd Ward in the mid-19th century. Irish immigrants – mostly refugees from the
Great Famine – found work on the docks and railroad along the
Hudson River and established
shantytowns there. After the
American Civil War, there was an influx of people who moved to New York City. The tenements that were built became overcrowded quickly. Many who lived in this congested, poverty-stricken area turned to gang life. Following
Prohibition, implemented in 1919, the district's many warehouses were ideal locations for bootleg distilleries for the
rumrunners who controlled illicit liquor. At the start of the 20th century, the neighborhood was controlled by gangs, including the violent
Gopher Gang led by One Lung Curran and later by
Owney Madden. Early gangs, like the Hell's Kitchen Gang, transformed into organized crime entities, around the same time that Owney Madden became one of the most powerful mobsters in New York. It became known as the "most dangerous area on the American Continent". By the 1930s, when the
McGraw-Hill Building was constructed in Hell's Kitchen, the surrounding area was still largely tenements. 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 longshoreman work was plentiful. By the end of the 1970s, the implementation of
containerized shipping led to the decline of the
West Side piers and many longshoremen found themselves out of work. In addition, construction of the
Lincoln Tunnel in the 1930s, Lincoln Tunnel access roads, and the
Port Authority Bus Terminal and ramps starting in 1950 destroyed much of Hell's Kitchen south of 41st Street. By 1965, Hell's Kitchen was the home base of the
Westies, an
Irish mob aligned with the
Gambino crime family. In the early 1980s widespread
gentrification began to alter the demographics of the long-time working-class
Irish American neighborhood. The 1980s saw an end to the Westies' reign of terror, when the gang lost all of its power after the
RICO convictions of most of its principals in 1986.
First wave of gentrification Special Clinton zoning district ,'' remained until 2007. Although the neighborhood is immediately west of New York's main business district, large-scale redevelopment has been kept in check for more than 40 years by strict zoning rules in a Special Clinton District designed to protect the neighborhood's residents and its low-rise character. In part to qualify for federal aid, New York developed a comprehensive
Plan for New York City in 1969–70. While for almost all neighborhoods, the master plan contained few proposals, it was very explicit about the bright future of Hell's Kitchen. The plan called for 2,000 to 3,000 new hotel rooms, 25,000 apartments, of office space, a new super liner terminal, a subway along 48th Street, and a convention center to replace what the plan described as "blocks of antiquated and deteriorating structures of every sort." However, outrage at the massive residential displacement that this development project would have caused, and the failure of the City to complete any replacement housing, led to opposition to the first project – a new convention center to replace the
New York Coliseum. To prevent the convention center from sparking a development boom that would beget the rest of the master plan with its consequent displacement, the Clinton Planning Council and Daniel Gutman, their environmental planner, proposed that the convention center and all major development be located south of 42nd Street, where public policy had already left tracts of vacant land. Nevertheless, in 1973, the
Jacob K. Javits Convention Center was approved for a 44th Street site that would replace piers 84 and 86. But in exchange, and after the defeat of a bond issue that would have funded a 48th Street "people mover", the City first abandoned the rest of the 1969–70 master plan and then gave the neighborhood a special zoning district to restrict further redevelopment. Since then, limited new development has filled in the many empty lots and rejuvenated existing buildings. Later, in 1978, when the city could not afford the higher cost of constructing the 44th Street convention center over water, the Mayor and Governor chose the rail yard site originally proposed by the local community. The SCD was originally split into four areas: •
Preservation Area: 43rd to 56th Streets between Eighth and Tenth 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: Eighth Avenue, 42nd and 57th Streets. Bulkier development permitted to counterbalance the downzoning in the preservation area. •
Mixed Use Area: Tenth and Eleventh Avenues between 43rd and 50th Streets. Mixed residential and manufacturing. New residential development only permitted in conjunction with manufacturing areas. Later combined into "Other Areas". •
Other Areas: West of Eleventh Avenue. Industrial and waterfront uses. Later combined with "Mixed Use Area" 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. In the original provisions, no building could be demolished unless it was unsound. New developments, conversions, or alterations that create new units or zero bedroom units must contain at least 20% two bedroom apartments with a minimum room size of . Alterations that reduce the percentage of two-bedroom units are not permitted unless the resulting building meets the 20% two-bedroom requirement. Building height in the Preservation Area cannot exceed or seven stories, whichever is less.
Windermere As the gentrification pace increased, there were numerous reports of problems between landlords and tenants. The most extreme example was the eight-story Windermere Apartments complex at the southwest corner of Ninth Avenue and 57th Street. Built in 1881, it is the second-oldest large apartment house in Manhattan. In 1980, the owner, Alan B. Weissman, tried to empty the building of its tenants. 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. All the major New York newspapers covered the trials that sent the Windermere's managers to jail. Although Weissman was never linked to the harassment, he and his wife made top billing in the 1985 edition of
The Village Voice annual list, "The Dirty Dozen: New York's Worst Landlords." Most of the tenants eventually settled and moved out of the building. In May 2006, seven tenants remained and court orders protecting the tenants and the building allowed it to remain in a derelict condition even as the surrounding neighborhood was experiencing a dramatic burst of demolition and redevelopment. In September 2007, the fire department evacuated the remaining seven residents from the building, citing dangerous conditions, and padlocked the front door. In 2008, the
New York Supreme Court ruled that the owners of the building, who include the
TOA Construction Corporation of Japan, must repair it.
Failed rezoning attempts By the 1980s, the area south of 42nd Street was in decline. Both the state and the city hoped that the
Jacob K. Javits Convention Center would renew the area. Hotels, restaurants, apartment buildings, and television studios were proposed. One proposal included apartments and hotels on a pier jutting out onto Hudson River, which included a
marina,
ferry slip, stores, restaurants, and a
performing arts center. At Ninth Avenue and 33rd Street, a 32-story office tower would be built. Hotels, apartment buildings, and a
Madison Square Garden would be built over the tracks west of
Pennsylvania Station. North of the Javits Center, a "Television City" would be developed by
Larry Silverstein in conjunction with
NBC. No changes to the zoning policy happened until 1990, when the city rezoned a small segment of 11th Avenue near the Javits Center. In 1993, part of 9th Avenue between 35th and 41st Streets was also rezoned. However, neither of these rezonings was particularly significant, as most of the area was still zoned as a manufacturing district with low-rise apartment buildings. By the early 1990s, there was
a recession, which scuttled plans for rezoning and severely reduced the amount of development in the area. After the recession was over, developers invested in areas like
Times Square, eastern Hell's Kitchen, and
Chelsea, but mostly skipped the Far West Side.
September 11, 2001 While most fire stations in Manhattan lost firefighters in the
September 11 attacks in 2001, the station with the greatest loss of firefighters was Engine Co. 54/Ladder Co. 4/Battalion 9 at 48th Street and Eighth Avenue, which lost 15 firefighters, an entire shift on duty. Given its proximity to Midtown, the station specializes in skyscraper fires and rescues. In 2007, it was the second-busiest firehouse in New York City, with 9,685 runs between the two companies. 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. Ladder 21, the "Pride of Hell's Kitchen", located on 38th Street between Ninth and Tenth Avenues, and stationed with Engine Co. 34, lost seven firefighters on September 11. In addition, on September 11, Engine Co. 26 was temporarily stationed with Engine Co. 34/Ladder Co. 21 and lost many firefighters themselves.
Redevelopment and second wave of gentrification Hell's Kitchen has become an increasingly upscale neighborhood of affluent young professionals as well as residents from the "old days", with rents in the neighborhood having increased dramatically above the average in Manhattan. It has also acquired a large and diverse community as residents have moved north from
Chelsea.
Zoning has long restricted the extension of
Midtown Manhattan's skyscraper development into Hell's Kitchen, at least north of 42nd Street. In 1989, the
David Childs- and
Frank Williams-designed
Worldwide Plaza established a beachhead when it was built at the former
Madison Square Garden site, a full city block between 49th and 50th Streets and between Eighth and Ninth Avenues that was exempt from special district zoning rules. This project led a real-estate building boom on Eighth Avenue, including the
Hearst Tower at 56th Street and Eighth Avenue. An indication of how fast real estate prices rose in the neighborhood was a 2004 transaction involving the
Howard Johnson's Motel at 52nd Street and Eighth Avenue. In June, Vikram Chatwal's Hampshire Hotel Group bought the motel and adjoining Studio Instrument Rental building for $9 million. In August, they sold the property to
Elad Properties for about $43 million. Elad, which formerly owned the
Plaza Hotel, built The Link, a luxury 44-story building, at that location.
Silverstein Properties and Greenwood Gaming & Entertainment had bid for a downstate New York casino license with the hope of developing a resort and casino in the neighborhood had they secured a license. They had proposed
The Avenir, which would be a resort with 1,000 hotel rooms, an eight-story casino and a 1,000 seat performance venue. 100 affordable housing units would also have been built. The community advisory committee rejected the proposal in September 2025.
Hudson Yards In 2003, the
New York City Department of City Planning issued a master plan that envisioned the creation of of commercial and residential development, two corridors of open space. Dubbed the Hudson Yards Master Plan, the area covered is bordered on the east by Seventh and Eighth Avenues, on the south by West 28th and 30th Streets, on the north by West 43rd Street, and on the west by
Hudson River Park and the
Hudson River. The City's plan was similar to a neighborhood plan produced by architect Meta Brunzema and environmental planner Daniel Gutman for the Hell's Kitchen Neighborhood Association (HKNA). The main concept of the HKNA plan was to allow major new development while protecting the existing residential core area between Ninth and Tenth avenues. As plans developed, they included a mixed-use real estate development by
Related Companies and
Oxford Properties over the MTA's
West Side Yard; a renovation of the
Javits Convention Center; and the
7 Subway Extension to the
34th Street–Hudson Yards station at
34th Street and
11th Avenue, which opened on September 13, 2015. By the 2010s, the neighborhood had become home to young
Wall Street financiers. ==Demographics==