Pre-colonial A
Lenape trading station called
Sapohanikan was on the riverbank, which, accounting for landfill, was located about where Gansevoort Street meets Washington Street today. The footpath that led from Sapohanikan inland to the east became the foundation for Gansevoort Street, which by accident or design aligns, within one degree, so that the
Manhattanhenge phenomenon, where the setting sun crosses the horizon looking down the street, occurs at the spring and autumnal equinoxes. In recognition of this history, petitions were made to call the 14th Street Park "Saphohanikan Park", although it appears no formal recognition was given.
Initial development The earliest development of the area now known as the Meatpacking District came in the mid-19th century. Before that it was the location of
Fort Gansevoort and of the upper extension of
Greenwich Village, which had been a vacation spot until overtaken by the northward movement of New York City. The irregular street patterns in the area resulted from the clash of the Greenwich Village street system with that of the
Commissioners' Plan of 1811, which sought to impose a regular grid on the undeveloped part of
Manhattan island. Construction of residences in the neighborhood – primarily
rowhouses and
town houses, some of which were later converted into
tenements – began around 1840, primarily in the
Greek Revival style which was prominent at the time.
After the Civil War When development began again after the war in the 1870s, the tenor of the neighborhood changed. Since it was no longer considered a desirable area to live in, construction of single-family residences was replaced with the building of multiple-family dwellings, and the continued internal industrialization increased. In addition an
elevated railroad line had been constructed through the neighborhood along Ninth Avenue and Greenwich Street, completed in 1869. and by the 1920s, what had been a neighborhood based on mixture of marketplaces became more tightly focused on meatpacking and related activities. Other industries continued to be located there, some of which included cigar-making, transportation-related businesses such as automobile repair, express services and garages, import-export firms, marine supplies, cosmetics, and printing. Many of these establishments were under the direct control of the
Mafia or subject to
New York Police Department protection rackets. The Mineshaft was forcibly shuttered by the city in 1985 at the height of
AIDS preventionism.
Resurgence Beginning in the late 1990s, the Meatpacking District went through a transformation. High-end
boutiques catering to young professionals and
hipsters opened, including
Diane von Fürstenberg,
Christian Louboutin,
Alexander McQueen,
Stella McCartney,
Barbour,
Rubin & Chapelle,
Theory,
Ed Hardy,
Puma,
Moschino, ADAM by
Adam Lippes, and an
Apple Store; restaurants such as Pastis—which closed in 2014—and 5 Ninth; and
nightclubs such as
Tenjune. In 2004,
New York magazine called the Meatpacking District "New York's most fashionable neighborhood". A catalyst for even greater transformation of the area was the opening in June 2009 of the first segment of the
High Line linear park. A former elevated
freight railroad built under the aegis of
Robert Moses, it opened to great reviews in the District (and in
Chelsea to the north) as a
greenway modeled after Paris's
Promenade Plantée. Thirteen months earlier, the
Whitney Museum of American Art had announced that it would build a second home, designed by
Renzo Piano, at 99 Gansevoort Street, just west of Washington Street and adjacent to the southernmost entrance to the High Line; and on May 1, 2015, the museum opened at this site. These were turning points in the changes experienced by the neighborhood over the first two decades of the 21st century, transforming it from a gritty manufacturing district into a bustling high-end retail, dining, and residential area, as documented by photographer Brian Rose in his 2014 book
Metamorphosis. In 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the outdoor theatre production
Seven Deadly Sins was staged in the area. Each play was performed in an empty shopfront. Audience members used headsets to hear the sound and dialogue. Seven writers responded to a different
deadly sin:
MJ Kaufman;
Ngozi Anyanwu,
Thomas Bradshaw,
Moisés Kaufman (who also directed the show),
Jeffrey LaHoste,
Ming Peiffer and
Bess Wohl; the addressed the respective sins of
pride,
gluttony,
sloth,
greed,
envy,
wrath and
lust. and in 2007 New York State Parks Commissioner Carol Ash approved adding the entire Meatpacking District, an area which included both the Gansevoort Market Historic District and the neighborhood's waterfront, to the New York State and
National Registers of Historic Places. The state district was listed on the National Register on May 30, 2007, and included 140 buildings, two structures, and one other site. The city government announced plans in 2025 for Gansevoort Square, a development with 600 apartments and several stores, which would replace the Gansevoort Meat Market. The same year, part of 14th Street in the Meatpacking District was narrowed to create a pedestrian plaza. ==Gallery==