There used to be a lot of hell in New York neighborhood names.
Hell’s Hundred Acres was the early to mid-20th century moniker for today’s SoHo, thanks to all the fires that broke out in the cast-iron buildings then used for manufacturing. Hellgate Hill was an East 90s enclave named for the narrow East River channel separating Queens from Ward’s Island, where perilous rocks and currents sunk many ships.
Let’s not forget Satan’s Circus, the Gilded Age vice district that straddled the Chelsea-Flatiron-Midtown borders, and Spuyten Duyvil, the northern Bronx enclave that translates into “spite of the devil” or “spouting devil” due to its treacherous waters.
Today, we’re left with one hell neighborhood: Hell’s Kitchen, on the West Side of Manhattan. The name conveys a sense of danger, depravity, and chaos—fueled by the post–Civil War development here of tenements, factories, elevated trains, slaughterhouses, waterfront activity, and railroads. Poor people and immigrants moved in, and crime was rampant.
So where did the illustrious name actually come from? Several intriguing theories abound.
In the late 19th century, Hell’s Kitchen might have first referred only to the down and dirty block of 39th Street between Ninth and Tenth Avenues. “Legend has it that one rookie cop commented to his more seasoned partner, ‘This place is hell itself,'” explains NYC Parks.
“‘Hell’s a mild climate,’ his partner replied. ‘This is hell’s kitchen.'” Soon, the name spread across the neighborhood—which early on spanned roughly 34th Street to 42nd Street west of Eighth Avenue and today runs all the way up to West 59th Street.
Another possibility is that Hell’s Kitchen the neighborhood was named after the Hell’s Kitchen Gang, which in the late 19th century specialized in stealing from railroad yards, breaking and entering, extortion, and “general mayhem,” according to a 1939 book produced by the Federal Writers Project.
A third explanation states that the name was borrowed from Hell’s Kitchen in London, a slum district on the South Side, per New York Architecture. A fourth attributes the name to a local German restaurant called Heil’s Kitchen.
Could a New York Times reporter be responsible for the name? The first appearance of “Hell’s Kitchen” in newsprint dates back to September 22, 1881.
“A Notorious Locality,” is the title of the article, which goes on to describe some of the tenement houses on the blocks between 38th and 40th Streets and Tenth and Eleventh Avenue.
“Within the square are a collection of buildings…known to the police as ‘Hell’s Kitchen,’ ‘The House of Blazes,’ ‘Battle Row,’ and ‘Sebastopol.’ The entire locality is probably the lowest and filthiest in the city, a locality where law and order are openly defied, where might makes right, and depravity revels riotously in squalor and reeking filth.” Ouch.
Probably the strangest theory posits that a remark by Davy Crockett—the early 1800s frontiersman—inspired the name.
In 1835, Crockett was touring New York City, and he stopped to see Five Points, the most infamous slum district in antebellum Manhattan. Of his visit to this neighborhood of rum houses, dance halls, and ramshackle homes packed with mostly Irish immigrants, he wrote in his autobiography:
“I said to [my friend]…these are worse than savages; they are too mean to swab hell’s kitchen.” Somehow the name was applied decades later to the West Side neighborhood, and it fit.
In recent years, Hell’s Kitchen has lost its once-notorious edge. The gangs are gone; apartments in formerly rundown tenements are now pricey. Bars and restaurants make it a prime nightlife area. An attempt to rebrand the neighborhood the bland “Clinton” years ago never really panned out.
Hell’s Kitchen will continue to be Hell’s Kitchen, albeit a more law-abiding and expensive version.
[Top image: Louis Maurer, 1883, “View of 43rd Street West of Ninth Avenue”; second image: Jacob Riis, 1890; third image: New York Times; fourth image: MCNY/Charles Von Urban, 1932; 33.173.319, 1881; fifth image: Jacob Riis, 1890; sixth image: MCNY, 1930, X2010.11.6065]
Tags: Hell's Kitchen Name Origin, Hell's Kitchen Neighborhood Name, Hell's Kitchen, Hell's Kitchen history, Hell's Kitchen street, How Hell's Kitchen Got Its Name
Ephemeral New York
February 20, 2023 at 5:35 am |
my brother lived here for the last 20 years and it’s a fascinating neighborhood
February 20, 2023 at 6:19 am |
I always thought it was named Clinton now from current maps. Has every neighborhood in NYC been gentrified now?
February 20, 2023 at 7:13 am |
Hell’s Kitchen was certainly a name no-yuppifed Clinton resident would’ve liked to live under, but Hell’s Kitchen stressed itself, in a way, held a knife up to their throat! Glad that happened…
February 20, 2023 at 10:32 am |
Who knows why some place names or catchphrases stick and some don’t? Considering the current state of the neighborhood, Hell’s Kitchen is a delightful anachronism. No doubt it was actually less delightful when it earned its sobriquet. (And Clinton? That’s a town upstate or in New Jersey.)
February 20, 2023 at 2:47 pm |
“delightful anachronism” absolutely. I’ve never heard anyone call the neighborhood Clinton—though I like that the name harkens back to a distinguished New Yorker who lived in the area: DeWitt Clinton.
February 20, 2023 at 11:55 am |
I worked in “Clinton” from 1982-1992 and no one ever referred to it as “Clinton”. It was always Hell’s Kitchen. Just like no calls 6th Avenue “Avenue of the Americas”. But I do miss the banana cream pie at he Market Diner!
February 20, 2023 at 2:45 pm |
Market Diner, RIP. I think there was another little diner on Tenth or Eleventh Avenue as well that also bit the dust.
February 20, 2023 at 4:36 pm |
They had the best waitresses! My favorite was Ronnie.
February 20, 2023 at 4:34 pm |
Really enjoyed this Hellish history lesson! Is the painting with the horse + the El an image of early 20th Century Soho? If not, where?
February 21, 2023 at 12:58 am |
That image is 43rd Street between Ninth and Tenth Avenues in the late 19th century. It’s rich with detail and I just love it.
February 20, 2023 at 7:20 pm |
Actually, a FDNY commissioner in the late 1950s referred to “Hell’s Hundred Acres” to not only include the name unnamed “SoHo”, but the entire loft district of the time, specifically defining it as stretching from Worth Street to 8th Street.
February 21, 2023 at 12:59 am |
Ah, good to know, thank you! I always thought it was basically for today’s SoHo.
February 20, 2023 at 8:31 pm |
I worked in Hell’s Kitchen from 1993 to 2009, and trust me, it can still be an actual Hell’s Kitchen, especially at night. Over the years, being adjacent to the Theater District, and the spillover restaurants, plus an incredible amount of new high-rise residentail development, might have softened it a bit. Alicia Keys, who grew up in Manhattan Plaza on 43rd, between 9th & 10th Avenues, always refers to her old ‘hood as Hell’s Kitchen, and I have no doubt that it was even more of a Hell’s Kitchen when the Westies Gang had rule over it in the 1970s and 1980s. Glenn in Brooklyn, NY.
February 20, 2023 at 10:32 pm |
A while ago, I heard or read–where, exactly, I forget–another etymology of “Hell’s Kitchen.” The neighborhood contained a number of breweries, distilleries and glue factories–places where concoctions “of the Devil” were made.
The attempt to rebrand Hell’s Kitchen as “Clinton” reminds me of a similar effort about 25 years ago to turn Brooklyn’s Red Hook into “Liberty Heights.” While the waterfront neighborhood offers the city’s best views of the Statue, it’s flat and near or below sea level. A similar campaign tried to rebrand El Barrio/East Harlem as “Upper Yorkville.” The funny thing is that, in both cases–as with Hell’s Kitchen–sticking to the neighborhood’s rougher-hewn moniker added to its allure as it gentrified.
February 21, 2023 at 1:01 am |
Liberty Heights? That’s terrible, just awful! It takes all the history out of the neighborhood and turns it into another bland real estate destination.
Thanks for another possible explanation about the origin of Hell’s Kitchen; I’d never heard that one.
February 21, 2023 at 9:37 am |
I did a bit more research on the boundaries of “Hell’s Hundred Acres.” The fire commissioner was Edward Cavanagh and the southern boundary was Chambers Street, not Worth. The northern boundary was indeed West 8th Street.
https://www.firefighterclosecalls.com/firefighter-history-2-14-4/
February 21, 2023 at 10:16 am |
The second photo in the article of West 39th Street, the hill with the shacks, is where the name Hell’s Kitchen originated. A man killed his wife with an axe in one of the cabins. When the police saw the carnage, one of them said it looked like Hell’s Kitchen. The name stuck to the neighborhood that was comprised of poor immigrants and ruled by Irish and Italian gangs. It was such a dangerous area, police didn’t go there.
February 21, 2023 at 12:44 pm |
Thank you for the extremely informative article. I have 1 question. I always thought Spuyton Duyvil was in the Southern part of the Bronx, bordering Manhattan. Isn’t it?
February 25, 2023 at 8:07 pm |
Stephen,
Spuyton Duyvil IS in the Bronx, bordering up to Manhattan, separated only by the Harlem River. The adjacent neighborhood to Spuyton Duyvil, Marble Hill is physically part of the Bronx, but, believe it or not was once part of Manhattan!
“Politically a part of New York County, Marble Hill became an island in the Harlem River when it was separated from the island of Manhattan by the construction of the Harlem Ship Canal in 1895. In 1914, the Harlem River on the north side of Marble Hill was fully diverted to the canal, with landfill connecting the neighborhood to the Bronx. The boundaries of the neighborhood are approximately between Terrace View Avenue and Johnson Avenue to the west, between 228th Street and 230th Street to the north, and cutting through the Marble Hill Houses and River Plaza Shopping Center to the east.[4]
Because of this change in topography, Marble Hill is often associated with the Bronx and is part of Bronx Community District 8.[1] In addition, Marble Hill has a Bronx ZIP Code of 10463,[5] and is served by the New York City Police Department’s 50th Precinct, headquartered in the Bronx.[6] Unlike the rest of Manhattan, it carries the Bronx area codes 718, 347, and 929, which are overlaid by the citywide area code 917.”
Fascinating stuff!
Glenn in Brooklyn, NY.
February 21, 2023 at 4:54 pm |
My great grandparents lived there at the turn of the previous century, as did many other immigrants from the West Indies.
My favorite haunt was Guido’s / Supreme Macaroni, now long gone.
February 21, 2023 at 11:30 pm |
Ate there many times. They shot the cover for Billy Joel’s album “The Stranger” at Guido’s.
September 19, 2023 at 5:37 am |
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November 1, 2023 at 1:39 pm |
Nicely written article and quite fascinating. I think your 4th image is one of soldiers during WWI, however, and not of locals in the neighborhood. The photo credit references one taken in 1932, so perhaps a minor mix-up? Just a bit of an oddity in an otherwise flawless blog post. I know, I know. Picky. But I’d want to know if it were my post 🙂
November 14, 2023 at 6:38 pm |
My grandfather owned a bar on w39th st called Fords . His name was George . It was about the 1920!s or 30’s . He lost it when they built the Lincoln Tunnel . Holy Cross was their parish . If anyone remembers their grandparents talking about it , Please let me know !
November 16, 2023 at 12:39 pm |
Speaking of bars, the mother of our late (and wonderful) Senator Patrick Moynihan owned a bar here in Hell’s Kitchen. Does anyone know where it was and its name?