Hell's Kitchen

thats the point
how many grungy nabes are left?

too bad i'll miss them all
nyc is becoming one big out door mall

there have been enough hi-rise apartments and condos built here to make it post - "up and coming" for a while

the area around port-authority will always be shady..SHADY!

This area has a long way to go. Nobody cleans sidewalks west of 9th Ave

"Seems pretty grungy to me"

That's why it's 'up and coming' rather than a 'nice neighborhood'

It's like a date with a 'nice personality'

Hells kitchen will never be "perfect". Port Authority will always been sleezy

eat at whym and eatery

great restaurants, cool bars...9th ave is very populated and busy...but STILL A VERY SHADY part of town..have been living there for 3 mos (fortunately temporarily)

thanks I own em

yeah the people walking up and down 9th ave, like kind of a "look what the cat brought in" look

i've lived 56th/9th for three years, very noisy neighborhood, VERY noisy

brooklyn here i come

It's now called Clinton

Who changed the name?? It has always been Hells Kitchen. Guess the name change came with all the new developments

that's right!

I'll always call it Hell's Kitchen; much more personality plus Clinton makes me think of the president who couldn't keep his pants on.

I too love the name Hell's Kitchen. But c'mon compared to our current embarrassment of a president, a district that is reminiscent of a man who gave us, 8 years of unprecedented economic growth, peace and budget surpluses, would not be that bad.. It could be a lot worse. How about Bush Place, or even scarier, giuliani heights!!

I have lived in Hell's Kitchen for 20 years and it is by far my favorite neighborhood in NYC. Such was not the case when I moved in. I happened on a good deal on a sublet. And I have lived in noisier neighborhoods in this town.

Hey, Mayor Guliani cleaned up New York...I remember under Dinkens homeless people bringing their mattresses into the subways and I couldn't even get around them.

I really did not mean to stir up a hornet's nest...this is a thread about Hell's Kitchen after all. But guiliani tends to be deified. He did do some good things, but he also did a lot of bad and divisive things that people tend to forget (e.g., trying to cut the Brooklyn Museum's funding because he did not like an exhibit, authorizing the release of sealed juvenile records of the victim of police brutality, firing Police Commissioner Bratton (the chief architect of New York's declining crime rate), acting petulant with respect to the US Open and Grammy organizers, etc.) Oh and by the way, after years crime going up (particularly under the Koch administration), it went down during the Dinkins administration. Don't get me wrong, I am not much of a Dinkins fan either. I do think that of our last four mayors, Bloomberg is clearly the best of the lot.

It was "up and coming" in 2000 as well.

hells kitchen

Your question was: why is HK up-and-coming? It is one of the few areas between Canal Street and 96th Street that has had lots of land and under-built sites to accomodate development. Take a look around: there are massive residential high-rise towers recently completed and under construction on 42nd Street west of the Port Authority. Walk up 10th Avenue: super luxury condos at 44th and 46th Street now underway to complement one just built between 10th/11th on 47th, two massive rental high-rises nearing completion from 51st to 53rd Street (and they will have five stages/theaters plus retail), just south of several fairly new rentals from 54th to 56th Street, and new high-rises underway at 57th Street. In between, walk-up after walk-up has been gut-renovated, from exterior facades to the units themselves. Walk down 50th Street between 10th and 11th, the public school has been gut renovated, and several old small walk-ups and garages have been knocked down and replaced by small, mid-rise rentals and condos, at the end of the block at 11th Ave is Kenneth Cole's headquarters office, which moved in about when I did in the late 1990s. Go back towards Ninth on 50th, and you'll see galleries and Ruby et Violette, the acclaimed cookie bakery. It's shocking. All of these new residential buildings are bringing $$$$ into the area, fueling retail demand, and changing the landscape of the area.

And this does not even take into account all the new buildings that have gone up further east between 8th and 10th (Alvin Ailey Dance Bldg, The Nicole, Beta West, ugly structures but oh well); 50th St at 8th Avenue to 9th Avenue, look at that block, several of those buildings were only built since the late 1990s. Aside from the new building at 8th and 47th or 46th going up, though, there are virtually no remaining sites east of 10th on which to build, so this development pressure over on tenth is also pushing existing commercial tenants on Ninth Ave to be forced out and replaced by higher-rent retail tenants to cater to the new demographic.

When I moved to HK 8 years ago, Ninth Avenue had some funky restaurants, but lots of mom-and-pop stores. Several have moved over to 11th Avenue (example: Gothic Cabinet) or gone under (Key Foods at 9th and 49th, replaced by Duane Reade a few years ago) and generally replaced by trendier eateries. Juice Generation? Tiny Thai? Vintage? Empanada Mama? Coppersmith's? Eatery? Hell's Kitchen? La Locanda? None of these, and half of the other retail/food places, too, were there when I moved in. 10th Avenue, where I live, was the wild wild west. I would leave my apartment for work in the morning and I was the only person wearing a tie (I work in an office). Now, everyone I see is dressed in their office-wear or hipster-wear. Ninth Avenue is somewhat "saved" from all of this in terms of its residential units b/c so many of its walk-ups are protected under city historic district zoning, and they have many rent-stabilized residential units, which make them harder to "turn over", as the real estate people say! Score one for the middle class. But the increased restaurant and bar traffic on Ninth makes it increasingly moisy for those poor souls.

So, while it may still feel a bit "grungy" to some, when you realize what this area looked like a few years ago, the change is dramatic.

If you think this area is shady, grimy, or undesirable, I can only suspect that reflects your frame of reference: I would assume that perhaps you haven't lived in New York for very long, and/or you come from a very wholesome, suburban place. For those of us who have been in NYC a long time (and I lived in Brooklyn Heights for many years before I moved to Hell's Kitchen eight years ago) and have the frame of reference that goes with a long tenure in this city, trust me, this neighborhood continues to amaze in its transformation from dicey to desirable.

Don't get me wrong, it's still not Central Park West: the Port Authority is still gross, but I'm amazed by the new restaurants on Ninth between 38th and 42nd, blocks which were not safely walkable as recently as 2001-2002. Now they are building a small condo building at 9th and 39th! With the new office high-rises going up at 8th and 40th to 42nd, I suspect there will be more development in the far west 30s, and with that point, here's the final rub: look south from the giant new towers going up on 42nd between 9th and the West Side Highway: you see that massive open space? With the extension to the 7 train that has already started excavation work, to the development contracts the city is about to give out for the Hudson Rail Yards commercial developments (10-15 million square feet of office, hotel, retail and residential space), the changes in Hell's Kitchen that are going to come over the next decade will make the changes over the last decade pale in comparison.

The empty parking lot on 37/10 has already been in the planning stages for a huge 50+ stories building with lots of retail on the ground floor. It's a huge lot! There's another building being considered, while in the negotiating buying phases, between 37/38 and 9th.

There's only one drawback --> transportation. It's definitely hard to find transportation on 10th, 11th, etc. Hopefully, the mayor and MTA will consider building a subway going from Canal to 56 on 10th ave.

Sorry, but if you are going to move to an "up and coming" neighborhood - shouldn't the price be cheaper? What's the point of moving to a place that may be much nicer in ten years if you don't get a deep discount for your troubles?
As an example: I know NYC is full of rats, but I seem to have seen many more on the side streets than elsewhere (to be clear, I mean rodents, not people)
The first people that moved to HK may have gotten incredible deals - but anyone that bought in a Luxury Highrise is fooling themselves (and had a broker that was looking to make a good commission)... How great will your building be in 10 years when it is surrounded by newer buildings? Will it appreciate as much as an older walkup - I doubt it....

To #21 To your comment about not living in
NYC long - I've lived in NYC for 18 years - I think it is great that you are so passionate about your neighborhood, but c'mon... do you really look forward to living in a construction zone... (talk about rats, construction always disturbs nests and brings them up to the street....)

BTW: Clinton is a very very old name - from when the land was still used for farming.. I think Hell's Kitchen has lots more flavor...