Editing Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan (section)

===Unity with the city and deterioration===
{{More citations needed section|date=June 2017}}
[[File:Jacob Riis - Hells Kitchen and Sebastopol - photograph.jpg|thumb|''Hell's Kitchen and Sebastopol'', c.&nbsp;1890, photographed by [[Jacob Riis]]]]
There were multiple changes that helped Hell's Kitchen integrate with New York City proper. The first was construction of the [[West Side Line|Hudson River Railroad]], whose initial leg&nbsp;– the {{cvt|40|mi|km}} to [[Peekskill, New York|Peekskill]]&nbsp;– was completed on September 29, 1849, By the end of 1849, it stretched to [[Poughkeepsie, New York|Poughkeepsie]] and in 1851 it extended to [[Albany, New York|Albany]]. The track ran at a steep grade up Eleventh Avenue, as far as [[60th Street (Manhattan)|60th Street]].<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.catskillarchive.com/rrextra/abnyh.Html |title=Bradbury and Guild, ''The Hudson River and the Hudson River Railroad'', 1851. |access-date=March 19, 2010 |archive-date=April 8, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230408195142/http://www.catskillarchive.com/cgi-sys/suspendedpage.cgi |url-status=live }}</ref>

The formerly rural riverfront was industrialized by businesses, such as tanneries, that used the river for shipping products and dumping waste.
The neighborhood that would later be known as Hell's Kitchen started forming in the southern part of the 22nd Ward in the mid-19th century. Irish immigrants&nbsp;– mostly refugees from the [[Great Famine (Ireland)|Great Famine]]&nbsp;– found work on the docks and railroad along the [[Hudson River]] and established [[shanty town|shantytowns]] there.

[[File:782 8th Ave NYC 1915 where Elsie Sigel was murdered.jpg|thumb|Mission House, Hell's Kitchen, c.&nbsp;1915]]

After the [[American Civil War]], there was an influx of people who moved to New York City. The tenements that were built became overcrowded quickly. Many who lived in this congested, poverty-stricken area turned to gang life. Following [[Prohibition in the United States|Prohibition]], implemented in 1919, the district's many warehouses were ideal locations for bootleg distilleries for the [[rum-running|rumrunners]] who controlled illicit liquor. At the start of the 20th century, the neighborhood was controlled by gangs, including the violent [[Gopher Gang]] led by One Lung Curran and later by [[Owney Madden]].<ref>Bayor, Ronald H. and Meagher, Timothy J. (1997). ''The New York Irish'', pp. 217–18. JHU Press. {{ISBN|0-8018-5764-3}}.</ref>

Early gangs, like the Hell's Kitchen Gang, transformed into organized crime entities, around the same time that Owney Madden became one of the most powerful mobsters in New York. It became known as the "most dangerous area on the American Continent".

By the 1930s, when the [[330 West 42nd Street|McGraw-Hill Building]] was constructed in Hell's Kitchen, the surrounding area was still largely tenements.<ref>{{cite NY1930|page=580}}</ref> After the [[repeal of Prohibition]], many of the organized crime elements moved into other rackets, such as illegal gambling and union shakedowns. The postwar era was characterized by a flourishing waterfront, and longshoreman work was plentiful.<ref>English, T.J. (2006). ''The Westies: Inside New York's Irish Mob'', p. 39. Macmillan. {{ISBN|0-312-36284-6}}.</ref>

By the end of the 1970s, the implementation of [[containerization|containerized]] shipping led to the decline of the [[West Side (Manhattan)|West Side]] piers and many longshoremen found themselves out of work. In addition, construction of the [[Lincoln Tunnel]] in the 1930s, Lincoln Tunnel access roads, and the [[Port Authority Bus Terminal]] and ramps starting in 1950 destroyed much of Hell's Kitchen south of 41st Street.<ref>English, T.J. (2006). ''The Westies: Inside New York's Irish Mob'', p. 39. Macmillan. {{ISBN|0-312-36284-6}}.</ref>

In 1959, an aborted rumble between rival Irish and Puerto Rican gangs led to the notorious "[[Salvador Agron|Capeman]]" murders in which two innocent teenagers, mistaken for rival gang members, were killed.<ref>Hinckley, David. [https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/cape-man-murders-shook-new-york-city-article-1.821121 "https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/cape-man-murders-shook-new-york-city-article-1.821121"], ''[[New York Daily News]]'', August 14, 2017. Accessed April 26, 2023. "There were 390 murders tallied by New York City police in 1959, and the Cape Man did only two of them. But these two shook loose the city's worst nightmares."</ref> By 1965, Hell's Kitchen was the home base of the [[Westies]], an [[Irish mob]] aligned with the [[Gambino crime family]]. In the early 1980s widespread [[gentrification]] began to alter the demographics of the longtime working-class [[Irish American]] neighborhood. The 1980s saw an end to the Westies' reign of terror, when the gang lost all of its power after the [[Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act|RICO]] convictions of most of its principals in 1986.