Editing Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan (section)

==<span class="anchor" id="Etymology"></span> Name ==
[[File:Eighth Avenue 46th Street jeh.JPG|thumb|Looking south from Eighth Avenue and [[46th Street (Manhattan)|46th Street]]]]
[[File:Ninth-north.jpg|thumb|View from between 47th and 48th Streets on [[Ninth Avenue (Manhattan)|Ninth Avenue]] looking northeast toward [[Time Warner Center]] and [[Hearst Tower (New York City)|Hearst Tower]]]]
Several explanations exist for the origin of the neighborhood's current name. An early use of the phrase appears in a comment [[Davy Crockett]] made about another notorious Irish slum in Manhattan, [[Five Points, Manhattan|Five Points]]. According to the Irish Cultural Society of the Garden City Area:
{{Blockquote|When, in 1835, Davy Crockett said, "In my part of the country, when you meet an Irishman, you find a first-rate gentleman; but these are worse than savages; they are too mean to swab hell's kitchen", he was referring to the Five Points.<ref name="5 Points">{{cite web |url=http://www.irish-society.org/home/hedgemaster-archives-2/places-artifacts/the-five-points |title=The Five Points |last=Walsh |first=John |date=September 1994 |publisher=Irish Cultural Society of the Garden City Area |access-date=April 21, 2015 |archive-date=March 24, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200324073900/https://www.irish-society.org/home/hedgemaster-archives-2/places-artifacts/the-five-points |url-status=live }}</ref>}}

According to an article by Kirkley Greenwell, published online by the Hell's Kitchen Neighborhood Association:
{{Blockquote|No one can pin down the exact origin of the label, but some refer to a [[tenement]] on [[54th Street (Manhattan)|54th Street]] as the first "Hell's Kitchen". Another explanation points to an infamous building at 39th as the true origin. A gang and a local [[Dive_bar|dive]] took the name as well.<ref name="HKNA Official site">{{cite web |url=http://hknanyc.org/aboutus/history.php |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101221013615/http://hknanyc.org/aboutus/history.php |url-status=dead |archive-date=December 21, 2010 |title=Hell's Kitchen Neighborhood Association |last=Greenwell |first=Kirkley |work=HKNA Official website |publisher=World Wide Vibe.com |access-date=February 25, 2014}}</ref>}}

Local historian Mary Clark explained the name thus:
{{Blockquote|...first appeared in print on September 22, 1881 when a ''[[The New York Times|New York Times]]'' reporter went to the West 30s with a police guide to get details of a multiple murder there. He referred to a particularly infamous tenement at 39th Street and [[Tenth Avenue (Manhattan)|Tenth 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. Another version ascribes the name's origins to a German restaurant in the area known as Heil's Kitchen, after its proprietors.<ref>Lambert, Bruce. [https://www.nytimes.com/1994/12/04/nyregion/neighborhood-report-chelsea-clinton-hell-s-kitchen-hotter-with-revivalist-fans.html "Neighborhood Report: Chelsea/Clinton; Hell's Kitchen Hotter With Revivalist Fans"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201220030026/https://www.nytimes.com/1994/12/04/nyregion/neighborhood-report-chelsea-clinton-hell-s-kitchen-hotter-with-revivalist-fans.html |date=December 20, 2020 }}, ''[[The New York Times]]'', December 4, 1994. Accessed March 31, 2017. "Among the theories on the name is that it derived from a restaurant called Heil's Kitchen."</ref> 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 Tenth 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."<ref name="hells-kitchen-park"/>}}

The 1929 book ''Manna-Hatin: The Story of New York'' states that the [[Panic of 1857]] led to the formation of gangs "in the notorious '[[Gas House District]]' at Twenty-First Street and the East River, or in 'Hell's Kitchen', in the West Thirties."<ref>{{cite book |author=Bank of the Manhattan Company |author2=Brearley Service Organization |title="Manna-hatin": the story of New York |publisher=[[The Manhattan Company]] |series=Henry Ford Estate collection |year=1929 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3wwMAAAAYAAJ |access-date=October 16, 2018 |page=160 |archive-date=April 8, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230408195142/https://books.google.com/books?id=3wwMAAAAYAAJ |url-status=live }}</ref>

Hell's Kitchen is frequently used to name the neighborhood, although real estate developers designate the area as 'Clinton' and 'Midtown West'. The 'Clinton name', used by the municipality of New York City, originated in 1959 in an attempt to change the image of the neighborhood by linking the area to [[DeWitt Clinton Park]] at 52nd and [[Eleventh Avenue (Manhattan)|Eleventh Avenue]], named after the 19th century [[DeWitt Clinton|New York governor]], though ''[[The New York Times]]'' noted that those who live in the area "prefer Hell's Kitchen" as the name for the neighborhood.<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/25/realestate/a-place-of-contrasts-and-even-an-alias-living-in-hells-kitchen-north.html |title=A Place of Contrasts, and Even an Alias – Living In {{!}} Hell's Kitchen North |last=Gill |first=John Freeman |date=September 23, 2011 |work=The New York Times |access-date=March 31, 2017 |issn=0362-4331 |archive-date=May 14, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190514100714/https://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/25/realestate/a-place-of-contrasts-and-even-an-alias-living-in-hells-kitchen-north.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>Jscobson, Aileen. [https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/11/realestate/living-in-hells-kitchen.html "Hell’s Kitchen: Where East Village Grit Meets the Artsy West Side"], ''[[The New York Times]]'', November 11, 2020. Accessed March 10, 2024. "By the 1960s, civic leaders seeking to improve the area’s image began referring to it as Clinton, after a family that owned property there in the 19th century. Most residents, however, prefer Hell's Kitchen."</ref>