Hell's Kitchen
Hell's Kitchen (also known as Clinton) is a neighborhood of New York City. It is the area between 34th and 59th Streets, from 8th Avenue to the Hudson River.
Originally the expression "Hell's Kitchen" referred to a rough neighborhood in South London. The term in reference to New York first appeared in print on September 22, 1881 when a New York Times reporter went to a police guide to get details of a multiple murder there. He referred to a particular tenement at 39th Street and 10th Avenue as "Hell's Kitchen", and said that the entire section was "probably the lowest and filthiest in the city". According to this version, 39th Street between 9th and 10th Avenues became known as Hell's Kitchen and the name was later expanded to the surrounding streets.
One version ascribes the name's origins to a German restaurant in the area known as Heil's Kitchen, after its proprietors. But the most common version traces it to the story of Dutch Fred The Cop, a veteran policeman, who with his rookie partner, was watching a small riot on West 39th Street near 10th Avenue. The rookie is supposed to have said, "This place is hell itself", to which Fred replied, "Hell's a mild climate. This is Hell's Kitchen."
In recent years, the neighborhood has undergone gentrification. Partly as a result, the alternative name "Clinton" has gained in popularity. The name has long had some currency, however; the Chelsea Clinton News, covering this area and the adjoining Chelsea, has been published for decades.
Hell's Kitchen is a popular slum setting within fiction:
