Chelsea is a neighborhood on the

West Side West Side or Westside may refer to: Places Canada * West Side, a neighbourhood of Windsor, Ontario * West Side, a neighbourhood of Vancouver, British Columbia United Kingdom * West Side, Lewis, Outer Hebrides, Scotland * Westside, Birmingham E ...

of the

borough A borough is an administrative division in various English-speaking countries. In principle, the term ''borough'' designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely. History In the Middle Ag ...

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. The area's boundaries are roughly 14th Street to the south, the

Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between N ...

and

West Street The Joe DiMaggio Highway, commonly called the West Side Highway and formerly the Miller Highway, is a mostly surface section of New York State Route 9A (NY 9A), running from West 72nd Street along the Hudson River to the southern t ...

to the west, and

Sixth Avenue Sixth Avenue – also known as Avenue of the Americas, although this name is seldom used by New Yorkers, p.24 – is a major thoroughfare in New York City's borough of Manhattan, on which traffic runs northbound, or "uptown". It is commercial ...

to the east, with its northern boundary variously described as near the upper 20sRegier, Hilda. "Chelsea (i)" in , pp.234–235 or 34th Street, the next major crosstown street to the north.Navarro, Mireya
"In Chelsea, a Great Wealth Divide"
, ''The New York Times'', October 23, 2015. Accessed October 23, 2015. "Today's Chelsea, the swath west of Sixth Avenue between 14th and 34th Streets, could be the poster neighborhood for what Mayor Bill de Blasio calls the tale of two cities." To the northwest of Chelsea is the neighborhood of

Hell's Kitchen Hell's Kitchen, also known as Clinton, is a neighborhood on the West Side of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is considered to be bordered by 34th Street (or 41st Street) to the south, 59th Street to the north, Eighth Avenue to the eas ...

, as well as Hudson Yards; to the northeast are the Garment District and the remainder of

Midtown South Midtown South is a macro-neighborhood of the borough of Manhattan in New York City, generally characterized as constituting the southern portion of Midtown Manhattan. Midtown Manhattan hosts over 700,000 daily employees as a busy hub for workers, ...

; to the east are

NoMad A nomad is a member of a community without fixed habitation who regularly moves to and from the same areas. Such groups include hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads (owning livestock), tinkers and trader nomads. In the twentieth century, the popu ...

and the

Flatiron District The Flatiron District is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, named after the Flatiron Building at 23rd Street, Broadway and Fifth Avenue. Generally, the Flatiron District is bounded by 14th Street, Union Square and Green ...

; to the southwest is the

Meatpacking District The Meatpacking District is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan that runs from West 14th Street south to Gansevoort Street, and from the Hudson River east to Hudson Street. The Meatpacking Business Improvement District along ...

; and to the south and southeast are the

West Village The West Village is a neighborhood in the western section of the larger Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, New York City. The traditional boundaries of the West Village are the Hudson River to the west, 14th Street (Manhattan ...

and the remainder of

Greenwich Village Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...

. Chelsea is named after the

Royal Hospital Chelsea The Royal Hospital Chelsea is a retirement home and nursing home for some 300 veterans of the British Army. Founded as an almshouse, the ancient sense of the word "hospital", it is a site located on Royal Hospital Road in Chelsea. It is an in ...

in London, England. Chelsea contains the Chelsea Historic District and its extension, which were designated by the

New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) is the New York City agency charged with administering the city's Landmarks Preservation Law. The LPC is responsible for protecting New York City's architecturally, historically, and cu ...

in 1970 and 1981 respectively., p.70-72 The district was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1977, and expanded in 1982 to include contiguous blocks containing particularly significant examples of period architecture. The neighborhood is primarily residential, with a mix of

tenement A tenement is a type of building shared by multiple dwellings, typically with flats or apartments on each floor and with shared entrance stairway access. They are common on the British Isles, particularly in Scotland. In the medieval Old Town, i ...

s, apartment blocks, city housing projects,

townhouses A townhouse, townhome, town house, or town home, is a type of terraced housing. A modern townhouse is often one with a small footprint on multiple floors. In a different British usage, the term originally referred to any type of city residence ...

, and renovated

rowhouse In architecture and city planning, a terrace or terraced house ( UK) or townhouse ( US) is a form of medium-density housing that originated in Europe in the 16th century, whereby a row of attached dwellings share side walls. In the United State ...

s, but its many retail businesses reflect the ethnic and social diversity of the population. The area has a large

LGBTQ ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term is a ...

population.Venugopal, Arun
"Census Shows Rising Numbers of Gay Couples and Dominicans in New York"
,

WNYC WNYC is the trademark and a set of call letters shared by WNYC (AM) and WNYC-FM, a pair of nonprofit, noncommercial, public radio stations located in New York City. WNYC is owned by New York Public Radio (NYPR), a nonprofit organization that di ...

, July 14, 2011. Accessed September 20, 2016. "The largest numbers of same-sex couples live in a corridor of sorts, that stretches from Greenwich Village through Chelsea and into Hells Kitchen and Midtown along the west side of Manhattan. Chelsea, long known for its gay singles scene, also registered the highest proportion of same-sex couples, and, in one census tract bounded by Sixth and Eighth Avenues and 18th and 22nd streets, 22 percent of all couples were same-sex couples." Chelsea is also known as one of the centers of the city's

art world The art world comprises everyone involved in producing, commissioning, presenting, preserving, promoting, chronicling, criticizing, buying and selling fine art. It is recognized that there are many art worlds, defined either by location or alt ...

, with over 200 galleries in the neighborhood. due to the area's

gentrification Gentrification is the process of changing the character of a neighborhood through the influx of more Wealth, affluent residents and businesses. It is a common and controversial topic in urban politics and urban planning, planning. Gentrification ...

, there is a widening income gap between the wealthy living in luxury buildings and the poor living in

housing project Public housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is usually owned by a government authorities, government authority, either central or local. Although the common goal of public housing is to provide affordable housing, the d ...

s, who are, at times, across the street from each other. Chelsea is a part of Manhattan Community District 4 and Manhattan Community District 5, and its primary ZIP Codes are 10001 and 10011. It is patrolled by the 10th Precinct of the

New York City Police Department The New York City Police Department (NYPD), officially the City of New York Police Department, established on May 23, 1845, is the primary municipal law enforcement agency within the City of New York, the largest and one of the oldest in ...

History

Early development

Chelsea takes its name from the estate and

Georgian-style Georgian architecture is the name given in most English-speaking countries to the set of architectural styles current between 1714 and 1830. It is named after the first four British monarchs of the House of Hanover—George I, George II, Geor ...

house of retired British Major Thomas Clarke, who obtained the property when he bought the farm of Jacob Somerindyck on August 16, 1750. The land was bounded by what would become 21st and 24th Streets, from the Hudson River to Eighth Avenue. Clarke chose the name "Chelsea" after the

London, England London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a major s ...

. Clarke passed the estate on to his daughter, Charity, who, with her husband Benjamin Moore, added land on the south of the estate, extending it to 19th Street. The house was the birthplace of their son,

Clement Clarke Moore Clement Clarke Moore (July 15, 1779 – July 10, 1863) was an American writer, scholar and real estate developer. He is best known as author of the Christmas poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas." Moore was Professor of Oriental and Greek Literature ...

, who in turn inherited the property. Moore is generally credited with writing "

A Visit From St. Nicholas ''A Visit from St. Nicholas'', more commonly known as ''The Night Before Christmas'' and ''Twas the Night Before Christmas'' from its first line, is a poem first published anonymously under the title ''Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas'' i ...

" and was the author of the first Greek and Hebrew

lexicon A lexicon is the vocabulary of a language or branch of knowledge (such as nautical or medical). In linguistics, a lexicon is a language's inventory of lexemes. The word ''lexicon'' derives from Koine Greek language, Greek word (), neuter of () ...

s printed in the United States. In 1827, Moore gave the land of his apple orchard to the

Episcopal Diocese of New York The Episcopal Diocese of New York is a diocese of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America, encompassing three New York City boroughs and seven New York state counties.

for the

General Theological Seminary The General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church (GTS) is an Episcopal seminary in New York City. Founded in 1817, GTS is the oldest seminary of the Episcopal Church and the longest continuously operating Seminary in the Anglican Communi ...

, which built its brownstone Gothic, tree-shaded campus south of the manor house. Despite his objections to the

Commissioner's Plan of 1811 The Commissioners' Plan of 1811 was the original design for the streets of Manhattan above Houston Street and below 155th Street, which put in place the rectangular grid plan of streets and lots that has defined Manhattan on its march uptown ...

, which ran the new Ninth Avenue through the middle of his estate, Moore began the development of Chelsea with the help of

James N. Wells James is a common English language surname and given name: *James (name), the typically masculine first name James * James (surname), various people with the last name James James or James City may also refer to: People * King James (disambiguati ...

, dividing it up into lots along Ninth Avenue and selling them to well-heeled New Yorkers. Covenants in the deeds of sale specified what could be built on the land – stables, manufacturing and commercial uses were forbidden – as well as architectural details of the buildings. In 1829, Moore leased one of the lots to Hugh Walker who constructed what is now the oldest standing house in Chelsea, completed in 1830.

Industrialization and entertainment district

The new neighborhood thrived for three decades, with many single family homes and rowhouses, in the process expanding past the original boundaries of Clarke's estate, but an industrial zone also began to develop along the Hudson. In 1847 the

Hudson River Railroad The New York Central Railroad was a railroad primarily operating in the Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The railroad primarily connected greater New York and Boston in the east with Chicago and St. Louis in the Mid ...

laid its freight tracks up a

right-of-way Right of way is the legal right, established by grant from a landowner or long usage (i.e. by prescription), to pass along a specific route through property belonging to another. A similar ''right of access'' also exists on land held by a gov ...

between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues, separating Chelsea from the

waterfront. By the time of the

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...

, the area west of Ninth Avenue and below 20th Street was the location of numerous distilleries making

turpentine Turpentine (which is also called spirit of turpentine, oil of turpentine, terebenthene, terebinthine and (colloquially) turps) is a fluid obtained by the distillation of resin harvested from living trees, mainly pines. Mainly used as a special ...

and

camphene Camphene is a bicyclic organic compound. It is one of the most pervasive monoterpenes. As for other terpenes, it is insoluble in water, flammable, colorless, and has a pungent smell. It is a minor constituent of many essential oils such as tur ...

, a lamp fuel. In addition, the huge Manhattan Gas Works complex, which converted

bituminous coal Bituminous coal, or black coal, is a type of coal containing a tar-like substance called bitumen or asphalt. Its coloration can be black or sometimes dark brown; often there are well-defined bands of bright and dull material within the seams. It ...

into

gas Gas is one of the four fundamental states of matter (the others being solid, liquid, and plasma). A pure gas may be made up of individual atoms (e.g. a noble gas like neon), elemental molecules made from one type of atom (e.g. oxygen), or ...

, was located at Ninth Avenue and 18th Street. The industrialization of western Chelsea brought immigrant populations from many countries to work in the factories, including a large number of

Irish Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...

immigrants, who dominated work on the Hudson River piers that lined the nearby waterfront and the truck terminals integrated with the freight railroad spur. As well as the piers, warehouses and factories, the industrial area west of Tenth Avenue also included lumberyards and breweries, and tenements built to house the workers. With the immigrant population came the political domination of the neighborhood by the

Tammany Hall Tammany Hall, also known as the Society of St. Tammany, the Sons of St. Tammany, or the Columbian Order, was a New York City political organization founded in 1786 and incorporated on May 12, 1789 as the Tammany Society. It became the main loc ...

machine A machine is a physical system using Power (physics), power to apply Force, forces and control Motion, movement to perform an action. The term is commonly applied to artificial devices, such as those employing engines or motors, but also to na ...

, as well as festering ethnic tensions: around 67 people died in a riot between Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants on July 12, 1871, which took place around 24th Street and Eighth Avenue. The social problems of the area's workers provoked

John Lovejoy Elliot John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Second ...

to form the Hudson Guild in 1897, one of the first

settlement house The settlement movement was a reformist social movement that began in the 1880s and peaked around the 1920s in United Kingdom and the United States. Its goal was to bring the rich and the poor of society together in both physical proximity and s ...

s – private organizations designed to provide social services. A theater district had formed in the area by 1869, and soon West 23rd Street was the center of American theater, led by

Pike's Opera House Pike's Opera House, later renamed the Grand Opera House, was a theater in New York City on the northwest corner of 8th Avenue and 23rd Street, in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan. It was constructed in 1868, at a cost of a million dollar ...

(1868, demolished 1960), on the northwest corner of Eighth Avenue. Chelsea was a busy entertainment district between about 1875 and 1900. Sixth Avenue contained the Ladies' Mile shopping district; music publishers opened offices in

Tin Pan Alley Tin Pan Alley was a collection of music publishers and songwriters in New York City that dominated the popular music of the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It originally referred to a specific place: West 28th Street ...

along 28th Street; and the Tenderloin red-light district occupied the northern section of Chelsea.

Early and mid-20th centuries

The neighborhood was an early center for the motion picture industry before World War I. Some of

Mary Pickford Gladys Marie Smith (April 8, 1892 – May 29, 1979), known professionally as Mary Pickford, was a Canadian-American stage and screen actress and producer with a career that spanned five decades. A pioneer in the US film industry, she co-founde ...

's first pictures were made on the top floors of an armory building at 221 West 26th Street, while other studios were located on 23rd and 21st Streets., pp. 151–155 To accommodate high freight and industrial demand, several railroads had built

rail freight Rail freight transport is the use of railroads and trains to transport cargo as opposed to human passengers. A freight train, cargo train, or goods train is a group of freight cars (US) or goods wagons (International Union of Railways) hauled ...

terminals on the Manhattan side of the Hudson River, and many freight terminals and warehouses were built in the western part of Chelsea by the late 19th century. The first of these was the Central Stores, constructed at 11th Avenue between 27th and 28th Streets in 1891. This was followed in 1900 by the

Lehigh Valley Railroad The Lehigh Valley Railroad was a railroad built in the Northeastern United States to haul anthracite coal from the Coal Region in Pennsylvania. The railroad was authorized on April 21, 1846 for freight and transportation of passengers, goods, w ...

's terminal between 26th and 27th Streets, as well as the

Baltimore and Ohio Railroad The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was the first common carrier railroad and the oldest railroad in the United States, with its first section opening in 1830. Merchants from Baltimore, which had benefited to some extent from the construction of ...

's terminal immediately to the south, completed in the early 1910s. Freight operations on Manhattan's far west side were improved when the elevated West Side Freight Line and the

West Side Elevated Highway The West Side Elevated Highway (West Side Highway or Miller Highway, named for Julius Miller, Manhattan borough president from 1922 to 1930) was an elevated section of New York State Route 9A (NY 9A) running along the Hudson River in the New ...

were built in the 1930s, replacing a surface-level railroad and roadway.

London Terrace London Terrace is an apartment building complex in the Chelsea, Manhattan, Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. It occupies an entire city block on Manhattan's West Side (Manhattan), West Side, bounded by Ninth Avenue (Manhattan), ...

was one of the world's largest apartment blocks when it opened in 1930, with a swimming pool,

solarium Solarium may refer to: * A sunroom, a room built largely of glass to afford exposure to the sun * A terrace (building) or flat housetop * The '' Solarium Augusti'', a monumental meridian line (or perhaps a sundial) erected in Rome by Emperor Augu ...

, gymnasium, and doormen dressed as London bobbies. Other major housing complexes in the Chelsea area are

Penn South Penn South, officially known as Mutual Redevelopment Houses and formerly Penn Station South, is a limited-equity
on the ...

, a 1962 cooperative housing development sponsored by the

International Ladies Garment Workers' Union The International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU), whose members were employed in the women's clothing industry, was once one of the largest labor unions in the United States, one of the first U.S. unions to have a primarily female membe ...

, and the

New York City Housing Authority The New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) is a public development corporation which provides public housing in New York City, and is the largest public housing authority in North America. Created in 1934 as the first agency of its kind in the U ...

-built and -operated

Fulton Houses The Robert Fulton Houses is a housing project located in the Chelsea neighborhood in the New York City Borough of Manhattan and is owned and operated by the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA). The site is located between West 16th and 1 ...

and

Chelsea-Elliot Houses The Chelsea-Elliott Houses is a combined housing project of the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), located between West 25th and 27th Streets and Ninth and Tenth Avenues in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. It consists ...

. The 23-story

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

Walker Building, which spans the block between 17th and 18th Streets just off of Seventh Avenue, was built in the early 1930s. That structure was converted in 2012 to residential apartments on the top 16 floors, with Verizon retaining the lower seven floors. In the early 1940s, tons of

uranium Uranium is a chemical element with the symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Uranium is weak ...

for the

Manhattan Project The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project w ...

were stored in the Baker & Williams Warehouse at 513–519 West 20th Street. The uranium was removed and a decontamination project at the site was completed during the early 1990s. By the mid-20th century, the western part of Chelsea had various types of light manufacturing businesses. According to the

, these ranged "from printing shops and box companies, to milk-bottling plants and electrical wire and cable manufacturers".

Late 20th century to present

The industrial character of West Chelsea declined in the 1960s and 1970s, as industries started to relocate from Manhattan. In subsequent years, the area's redevelopment was concentrated around West Chelsea, and some of the old industrial structures were converted to nightclubs. These included Les Mouches (housed in a former

Otis Elevator Company Otis Worldwide Corporation (trade name, branded as the Otis Elevator Company, its former legal name) is an American company that develops, manufactures and markets elevators, escalators, moving walkways, and related equipment. Based in Farming ...

factory) and

the Tunnel ''The'' () is a grammatical Article (grammar), article in English language, English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite ...

(housed in the Central Stores building on 11th Avenue). Many LGBTQ people started moving to Chelsea in the mid-1980s, and upscale restaurants and stores began opening in the neighborhood around the same time. By then, the neighborhood also contained some of New York City's "cutting-edge theaters and performance spaces" according to ''The New York Times''. By the late 1990s, West Chelsea had also begun to attract visual-arts galleries that had relocated from

SoHo Soho is an area of the City of Westminster, part of the West End of London. Originally a fashionable district for the aristocracy, it has been one of the main entertainment districts in the capital since the 19th century. The area was develop ...

. On September 17, 2016, there was an explosion outside a building on 23rd Street, which injured 29 people; police located and removed a second, undetonated

pressure cooker bomb A pressure cooker bomb is an improvised explosive device (IED) created by inserting explosive material into a pressure cooker and attaching a blasting cap into the cover of the cooker. Pressure cooker bombs have been used in a number of attacks ...

on 27th Street. A suspect,

Ahmad Khan Rahami On September 17–19, 2016, three bombs exploded and several unexploded ones were found in the New York metropolitan area. The bombings left 31 people wounded, but no fatalities or life-threatening injuries were reported. On the morning of Sept ...

, was captured two days later after a gunfight in

Linden, New Jersey Linden is a city in southeastern Union County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is part of the New York Metropolitan Area, located about southwest of Manhattan and bordering Staten Island, a borough of New York City, across the Arthur Kill ...

. By the late 2010s, the eastern part of Chelsea, which had once been largely industrial, had also attracted upscale residential development.

Demographics

For census purposes, the New York City government classifies Chelsea as part of a larger neighborhood tabulation area called Hudson Yards-Chelsea-Flat Iron-Union Square. Based on data from the

2010 United States Census The United States census of 2010 was the twenty-third United States national census. National Census Day, the reference day used for the census, was April 1, 2010. The census was taken via mail-in citizen self-reporting, with enumerators servin ...

, the population of Hudson Yards-Chelsea-Flat Iron-Union Square was 70,150, a change of 14,311 (20.4%) from the 55,839 counted in

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from ...

. Covering an area of , the neighborhood had a population density of .Table PL-P5 NTA: Total Population and Persons Per Acre – New York City Neighborhood Tabulation Areas*, 2010
, Population Division –

Department of City Planning, February 2012. Accessed June 16, 2016. The racial makeup of the neighborhood was 65.1% (45,661)

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White on ...

, 5.7% (4,017)

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

, 0.1% (93) Native American, 11.8% (8,267)

Asian Asian may refer to: * Items from or related to the continent of Asia: ** Asian people, people in or descending from Asia ** Asian culture, the culture of the people from Asia ** Asian cuisine, food based on the style of food of the people from Asi ...

, 0% (21)

Pacific Islander Pacific Islanders, Pasifika, Pasefika, or rarely Pacificers are the peoples of the list of islands in the Pacific Ocean, Pacific Islands. As an ethnic group, ethnic/race (human categorization), racial term, it is used to describe the original p ...

, 0.4% (261) from

other races Other often refers to: * Other (philosophy), a concept in psychology and philosophy Other or The Other may also refer to: Film and television * ''The Other'' (1913 film), a German silent film directed by Max Mack * ''The Other'' (1930 film), a ...

, and 2.3% (1,587) from two or more races.

Hispanic The term ''Hispanic'' ( es, hispano) refers to people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or Hispanidad. The term commonly applies to countries with a cultural and historical link to Spain and to Vic ...

Latino Latino or Latinos most often refers to: * Latino (demonym), a term used in the United States for people with cultural ties to Latin America * Hispanic and Latino Americans in the United States * The people or cultures of Latin America; ** Latin A ...

of any race were 14.6% (10,243) of the population.Table PL-P3A NTA: Total Population by Mutually Exclusive Race and Hispanic Origin – New York City Neighborhood Tabulation Areas*, 2010
, Population Division –

Department of City Planning, March 29, 2011. Accessed June 14, 2016. The entirety of Community District 4, which comprises Chelsea and Hell's Kitchen, had 122,119 inhabitants as of NYC Health's 2018 Community Health Profile, with an average life expectancy of 83.1 years. This is higher than the median life expectancy of 81.2 for all New York City neighborhoods. Most inhabitants are adults: a plurality (45%) are between the ages of 25–44, while 26% are between 45 and 64, and 13% are 65 or older. The ratio of youth and college-aged residents was lower, at 9% and 8% respectively. As of 2017, the median

household income Household income is a measure of the combined incomes of all people sharing a particular household or place of residence. It includes every form of income, e.g., salaries and wages, retirement income, near cash government transfers like food stamp ...

in Community Districts 4 and 5 was $101,981. In 2018, an estimated 11% of Chelsea and Hell's Kitchen residents lived in poverty, compared to 14% in all of Manhattan and 20% in all of New York City. One in twenty residents (5%) were unemployed, compared to 7% in Manhattan and 9% in New York City. Rent burden, or the percentage of residents who have difficulty paying their rent, is 41% in Chelsea and Hell's Kitchen, compared to the boroughwide and citywide rates of 45% and 51% respectively. Based on this calculation, , Chelsea and Hell's Kitchen are considered to be high-income relative to the rest of the city and not

gentrifying Gentrification is the process of changing the character of a neighborhood through the influx of more affluent residents and businesses. It is a common and controversial topic in urban politics and planning. Gentrification often increases the ec ...

Culture

People of many different cultures live in Chelsea. Chelsea is famous for having a large LGBTQ population, with one of Chelsea's census tracts reporting that 22% of its residents were gay couples, and is known for its social diversity and inclusion. Eighth Avenue is a center for LGBT-oriented shopping and dining, and from 16th to 22nd Streets between Ninth and Tenth Avenues, mid-nineteenth-century brick and brownstone townhouses are still occupied, a few even restored to single family use. The stores of Chelsea reflect the ethnic and social diversity of the area's population. The Chelsea

Lofts A loft is a building's upper storey or elevated area in a room directly under the roof (American usage), or just an attic: a storage space under the roof usually accessed by a ladder (primarily British usage). A loft apartment refers to large ...

district – the former fur and flower district – is located roughly between Sixth and Seventh Avenues from 23rd to 30th streets. The McBurney YMCA on West 23rd Street, commemorated in the hit

Village People Village People is an American disco group known for its on-stage costumes and suggestive lyrics in their music. The group was originally formed by French producers Jacques Morali, Henri Belolo and lead singer Victor Willis following the release ...

song ''

Y.M.C.A. YMCA, sometimes regionally called the Y, is a worldwide youth organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, with more than 64 million beneficiaries in 120 countries. It was founded on 6 June 1844 by George Williams in London, originally ...

'', sold its home and relocated in 2002 to a new facility on 14th Street, the neighborhood's southern border. By the late 20th and early 21st centuries, Chelsea had become an alternative shopping destination, starring the likes of Barneys CO-OP — which replaced the much larger original Barneys flagship store —

Comme des Garçons Comme des Garçons (also known as CDG) is a Japanese fashion label based in Paris that was created and led by Rei Kawakubo. Its French flagship store is located in Paris. This label owns a world-wide store chain featuring various lines of prod ...

Balenciaga Balenciaga SA ( ) is a luxury fashion house founded in 1919 by the Spanish designer Cristóbal Balenciaga in San Sebastian, Spain. Balenciaga produces ready-to-wear, footwear, handbags, and accessories and licenses its name and branding to C ...

boutiques,

Alexander McQueen Lee Alexander McQueen CBE (17 March 1969 – 11 February 2010) was a British fashion designer and couturier. He founded his own Alexander McQueen label in 1992, and was chief designer at Givenchy from 1996 to 2001. His achievements in fashion ...

Stella McCartney Stella Nina McCartney (born 13 September 1971) is an English fashion designer. She is a daughter of British singer-songwriter Paul McCartney and the late American photographer and animals rights activist Linda McCartney. Like her parents, McCa ...

, and

Christian Louboutin Christian Louboutin (; born 7 January 1963) is a French fashion designer whose high-end stiletto footwear incorporates shiny, red-lacquered soles that have become his signature. Initially a freelance designer for fashion houses, he started hi ...

Chelsea Market Chelsea Market is a food hall, shopping mall, office building and television production facility located in the Chelsea neighborhood of the borough of Manhattan, in New York City. The Chelsea Market complex occupies an entire city block with a ...

, on the ground floor of the former

Nabisco Nabisco (, abbreviated from the earlier name National Biscuit Company) is an American manufacturer of cookies and snacks headquartered in East Hanover, New Jersey. The company is a subsidiary of Illinois-based Mondelēz International. Nabisco's ...

Building, is a destination for food lovers. In the late 1990s, New York's visual arts community began a gradual transition away from

, due to increasing rents and competition from upscale retailers for the large and airy spaces that

art galleries An art gallery is a room or a building in which visual art is displayed. In Western cultures from the mid-15th century, a gallery was any long, narrow covered passage along a wall, first used in the sense of a place for art in the 1590s. The lon ...

require, and the area of West Chelsea between Tenth and

Eleventh In music or music theory, an eleventh is the note eleven scale degrees from the root of a chord and also the interval between the root and the eleventh. The interval can be also described as a compound fourth, spanning an octave plus a f ...

Avenues and

16th 16 (sixteen) is the natural number following 15 and preceding 17. 16 is a composite number, and a square number, being 42 = 4 × 4. It is the smallest number with exactly five divisors, its proper divisors being , , and . In English speech, ...

and 28th Streets has become a new global centers of contemporary art, home to over 200 art galleries that are home to modern art from both upcoming and established artists. Along with the art galleries, Chelsea is home to the

Rubin Museum of Art The Rubin Museum of Art, also known as the Rubin Museum is a museum dedicated to the collection, display, and preservation of the art and cultures of the Himalayas, the Indian subcontinent, Central Asia and other regions within Eurasia, with a per ...

, with a focus on Himalayan art; the

Graffiti Research Lab Graffiti Research Lab is an art project founded by Evan Roth and James Powderly James Powderly (born 1976) is an artist, designer and engineer whose work has focused on creating tools for graffiti artists and political activists, designing ro ...

and

New York Live Arts New York Live Arts (Live Arts) is a movement-focused arts organization in New York City that serves as the home of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company. The building was formerly the home of Dance Theatre Workshop, with which the Bill T. ...

, a producing and presenting organization of dance and other movement-based arts. The community, in fact, is home to many highly regarded performance venues, among them the

Joyce Theater The Joyce Theater (“The Joyce") is a 472-seat dance performance venue located in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City. The building opened in 1941 as the Elgin Theater, a movie house, and was gut-renovated and reconfigured in 1981-82 to re ...

, one of the city's premier modern dance emporiums, and

The Kitchen The Kitchen is a non-profit, multi-disciplinary avant-garde performance and experimental art institution located at 512 West 19th Street, between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. It was founde ...

, a center for cutting-edge theatrical and visual arts. The_Rubin_Museum_of_Art_(49051574333)

Above 23rd Street, by the

, the neighborhood is post-industrial, featuring the elevated

High Line The High Line is a elevated park, elevated linear park, greenway (landscape), greenway and rail trail created on a former New York Central Railroad spur on the West Side (Manhattan), west side of Manhattan in New York City. The High Line's ...

viaduct, which follows the river all through Chelsea. The elevated rail line was the successor to the street-level freight line original built through Chelsea in 1847, which was the cause of numerous fatal accidents, so it was elevated in the early 1930s by the

New York Central Railroad The New York Central Railroad was a railroad primarily operating in the Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The railroad primarily connected greater New York and Boston in the east with Chicago and St. Louis in the Midw ...

. It fell out of use in the 1960s through 1980 and was originally slated to be torn down, but in the early 2000s, it was redesigned and converted into a highly used aerial greenway and

rails-to-trails A rail trail is a shared-use path on railway right of way. Rail trails are typically constructed after a railway has been abandoned and the track has been removed, but may also share the right of way with active railways, light rail, or streetcar ...

park. Brazee, Christopher D. and Most, Jennifer L. et al
"West Chelsea Historic District Designation Report"

(July 15, 2008) With a change in zoning resolution in conjunction with the development of the High Line, Chelsea experienced a new construction boom, with projects by notable architects such as

Shigeru Ban Biography
, The Hyatt Foundation, retrieved 26 March 2014 is a Japanese architect, known for his i ...

Neil Denari Neil Denari (b. Fort Worth, Texas September 3, 1957) is an American architect, professor, and author. Based since 1988 in Los Angeles, Denari emerged in New York during the 1980s with a series of theoretical projects and texts based on the collap ...

Jean Nouvel Jean Nouvel (; born 12 August 1945) is a French architect. Nouvel studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and was a founding member of ''Mars 1976'' and ''Syndicat de l'Architecture'', France’s first labor union for architects. He has ob ...

, and

Frank Gehry Frank Owen Gehry, , FAIA (; ; born ) is a Canadian-born American architect and designer. A number of his buildings, including his private residence in Santa Monica, California, have become world-renowned attractions. His works are considered ...

. The neighborhood was quickly gentrifying, with small businesses being replaced by big-box retailers and technology and fashion stores. With this development, more wealthy residents moved in, further widening an already-existing income gap with public-housing residents. In 2015, the average yearly household income in most of Chelsea was about $140,000. On the other hand, in the area's two public-housing developments – the Chelsea-Elliot Houses, between 25th Street, Ninth Avenue, 28th Street, and Tenth Avenue; and Fulton Houses, between 16th Street, Ninth Avenue, 19th Street, and Tenth Avenue – the average income was less than $30,000. At the same time, the area's Puerto Rican enclaves and rent-subsidized housing, especially in

Penn South Penn South, officially known as Mutual Redevelopment Houses and formerly Penn Station South, is a limited-equity
on the ...

, was being replaced by high-rent studios. This resulted in large income disparities across the neighborhood; one block in particular – 25th Street between 9th and 10th Avenues – had the Elliot Houses on its north side and two million-dollar residences on its south side. The Chelsea neighborhood is served by two weekly newspapers: the ''Chelsea-Clinton News'' and ''Chelsea Now''. ''West Chelsea'' refers to the western portion of Chelsea, previously known as Gasoline Alley, much of which was previously a manufacturing area and has since been rezoned to allow for high-rise residential uses. It is often considered the area of Chelsea between the Hudson River to the west and Tenth Avenue to the east, a portion of which was designated a

historic district A historic district or heritage district is a section of a city which contains older buildings considered valuable for historical or architectural reasons. In some countries or jurisdictions, historic districts receive legal protection from c ...

in 2008. A 2008 article in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' showed the eastern boundary of West Chelsea as Eighth Avenue for the area between 14th and 23rd streets, Ninth Avenue between 23rd and 25th, and Tenth Avenue between 25th and 29th.

Landmarks and places of interest

Culinary

The

, located in a restored historic

factory and headquarters, is a festival marketplace that hosts a variety of shopping and dining options, including bakeries, restaurants, a fish market, wine store, and many others. Peter McManus Cafe, a bar and restaurant on Seventh Avenue at 19th Street, is among the oldest family-owned and -operated bars in the city. The

Empire Diner The Empire Diner is a restaurant in New York City that launched a vogue for upscale retro diners, and whose art deco exterior became an iconic image in numerous films and television programs. It is located at the corner of Tenth Avenue and 22nd ...

was an

art moderne Streamline Moderne is an international style of Art Deco architecture and design that emerged in the 1930s. Inspired by aerodynamic design, it emphasized curving forms, long horizontal lines, and sometimes nautical elements. In industrial design ...

diner at 210 Tenth Avenue at 22nd Street that appeared in several movies and was mentioned in

Billy Joel William Martin Joel (born May 9, 1949) is an American singer, pianist and songwriter. Commonly nicknamed the "Piano Man (song), Piano Man" after his album and signature song of the same name, he has led a commercially successful career as a solo ...

's song "Great Wall of China". Designed by

Fodero Dining Car Company The Fodero Dining Car Company (1933–1981) was a diner manufacturer located in Newark and later Bloomfield, New Jersey. It was founded by Italian immigrant Joseph Fodero, who formed the company after constructing diners with P. J. Tierney Sons ...

, it was built in 1946 andwas altered in 1979 by Carl Laanes. The diner closed on May 15, 2010; reopened briefly as "The Highliner", and again re-opened under its original name in January 2014 before closing permanently in December 2015 due to failure to pay rent.

Cultural

was built in 1868, and bought the next year by James Fisk and

Jay Gould Jason Gould (; May 27, 1836 – December 2, 1892) was an American railroad magnate and financial speculator who is generally identified as one of the robber barons of the Gilded Age. His sharp and often unscrupulous business practices made hi ...

, who renamed it the Grand Opera House. Located on the corner of Eighth Avenue and 23rd Street, it survived until 1960 as an

RKO RKO Radio Pictures Inc., commonly known as RKO Pictures or simply RKO, was an American film production and distribution company, one of the "Big Five" film studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orpheu ...

movie theater. The

Irish Repertory Theatre The Irish Repertory Theatre is an Off Broadway theatre founded in 1988. History The Irish Repertory Theatre was founded by Ciarán O'Reilly and Charlotte Moore, which opened its doors in September 1988,http://www.nyc-arts.org/organizations/ ...

is an

Off-Broadway An off-Broadway theatre is any professional theatre venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, inclusive. These theatres are smaller than Broadway theatres, but larger than off-off-Broadway theatres, which seat fewer tha ...

theatrical company on West 22nd Street producing plays by Irish and Irish-American writers. The

, located in the former

Elgin Theater The Elgin Theater is the former name of the building now known as the Joyce Theater, located on the corner of 19th Street and Eighth Avenue in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. The theater showed films from its opening ...

at 175 Eighth Avenue, near 19th Street, is in a 1941 movie house that closed in 1978. The Elgin was completely renovated to create in the Joyce a venue suitable for dance, and was reopened in 1982.

is a performance space at 512 West 19th Street. It was founded in

in 1971 by

Steina and Woody Vasulka Steina Vasulka (born Steinunn Briem Bjarnadottir in 1940)
Soros Center for Contemporary Arts Budapest and Woody Vasul ...

, taking its name from the original location, the kitchen of the

Mercer Arts Center The Kitchen is a non-profit, multi-disciplinary avant-garde performance and experimental art institution located at 512 West 19th Street, between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. It was founde ...

. The warehouse building at 530 West 27th Street, which was the site of The Sound Factory &

Twilo Twilo was an American nightclub in operation from 1995 to 2001 in New York City and from 2006 to 2007 in Miami. The New York location at 530 West 27th Street in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan regularly attracted a crowd of thousands to its w ...

, as well as several other megaclubs in the 1980s and 1990s, was acquired in 2011 by the British theater company

Punchdrunk Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is a neurodegenerative disease linked to repeated trauma to the head. The encephalopathy symptoms can include behavioral problems, mood problems, and problems with thinking. The disease often gets worse o ...

, who converted it into "The McKittrick Hotel", a five-story, performance space housing their immersive site-specific theatrical production, ''Sleep No More''. The building, along with those at 532 and 542 West 27th Street, is also the location of several restaurants and event venues that relate to the themes and stories told in the hotel, such as 'Speakeasy Magick', featuring Todd Robbins, Jason Suran, and Matthew Holtzclaw.

is a dance organization located at 219 West 19th Street between 7th and 8th Avenues. The

is a museum dedicated to the collection, display, and preservation of the art of the Himalayas and surrounding regions, especially that of Tibet. It is located at 150 West 17th Street between the Avenue of the Americas (Sixth Avenue) and Seventh Avenue. Edificio_IAC_InterActiveCorp

Industrial and commercial

Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...

's New York office occupies

111 Eighth Avenue 111 Eighth Avenue, also known as the Google Building and formerly known as Union Inland Terminal #1 and the Port Authority Building, is an Art Deco multi-use building in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. Fifteen stories ta ...

, which takes up the full city block between 15th and 16th Streets and between Eighth and Ninth Avenues. The building was once Inland Terminal 1 of the

Port Authority of New York and New Jersey The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, PANYNJ; stylized, in logo since 2020, as Port Authority NY NJ, is a joint venture between the U.S. states of New York and New Jersey, established in 1921 through an interstate compact authorized ...

. The Starrett-Lehigh Building, a huge full-block freight terminal and warehouse on West 26th Street between Eleventh and Twelfth Avenues, was built in 1930–1931 as a joint venture of the Starett real estate firm and the

. Designed by Cory & Cory to enable trains to pull into the ground floor of the building, it was one of only a few American buildings included in the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

's 1932 " International Style" exhibition. It was designated a

New York City landmark The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) is the New York City agency charged with administering the city's Landmarks Preservation Law. The LPC is responsible for protecting New York City's architecturally, historically, and cu ...

in 1966.

The Hudson Yards rail-yard development is located at the northern edge of Chelsea, within the Hudson Yards neighborhood. The project's centerpiece is a mixed-use real estate development by

Related Companies The Related Companies, L.P. is an American real estate firm in New York City, with offices and developments in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Miami, San Francisco, Abu Dhabi, London, São Paulo and Shanghai. Related has more than 3,0 ...

. According to its master plan, created by master planner

Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates (KPF) is an American architecture firm that provides architecture, interior, programming and master planning services for clients in both the public and private sectors. KPF is one of the largest architecture firms in ...

, Hudson Yards is expected to consist of 16 skyscrapers containing more than of new office, residential, and retail space. Among its components will be of commercial office space, a retail center with two levels of restaurants, cafes, markets and bars, a hotel, a cultural space, about 5,000 residences, a 750-seat school, and of public open space. The development, located mainly above and around the

West Side Yard The West Side Yard (officially the John D. Caemmerer West Side Yard) is a rail yard of 30 tracks owned by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority on the west side of Manhattan in New York City. Used to store commuter rail trains operated by the ...

, will create a new neighborhood that overlaps with Chelsea and Hell's Kitchen.

Residential

Hotel Chelsea The Hotel Chelsea (also the Chelsea Hotel or the Chelsea) is a hotel in Manhattan, New York City, built between 1883 and 1885. The 250-unit hotel is located at 222 West 23rd Street, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues, in the neighborhood of Ch ...

, built 1883–1885 and designed by Hubert, Pirsson & Co., was New York's first cooperative apartment complex and was the tallest building in the city until 1902. After the theater district migrated uptown and the neighborhood became commercialized, the residential building folded and in 1905 it was turned into a hotel. The hotel attracted attention as the place where

Dylan Thomas Dylan Marlais Thomas (27 October 1914 – 9 November 1953) was a Welsh poet and writer whose works include the poems "Do not go gentle into that good night" and "And death shall have no dominion", as well as the "play for voices" ''Under ...

had been staying when he died in 1953 at St. Vincent's Hospital in

, and for the 1978 slaying of

Nancy Spungen Nancy Laura Spungen (; February 27, 1958 – October 12, 1978) was the American girlfriend of English musician Sid Vicious, and a figure of the 1970s punk rock scene. Raised Jewish in Philadelphia, Spungen was an emotionally disturbed child who ...

for which

Sid Vicious John Simon Ritchie (10 May 1957 – 2 February 1979), better known by his stage name Sid Vicious, was an English musician, best known as the bassist for the punk rock band Sex Pistols. Despite dying in 1979 at age 21, he remains an icon of the ...

was accused. The hotel has been the home of numerous celebrities, including

Brendan Behan Brendan Francis Aidan Behan (christened Francis Behan) ( ; ga, Breandán Ó Beacháin; 9 February 1923 – 20 March 1964) was an Irish poet, short story writer, novelist, playwright, and Irish Republican activist who wrote in both English an ...

Thomas Wolfe Thomas Clayton Wolfe (October 3, 1900 – September 15, 1938) was an American novelist of the early 20th century. Wolfe wrote four lengthy novels as well as many short stories, dramatic works, and novellas. He is known for mixing highly origin ...

Mark Twain Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has p ...

Tennessee Williams Thomas Lanier Williams III (March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983), known by his pen name Tennessee Williams, was an American playwright and screenwriter. Along with contemporaries Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller, he is considered among the thre ...

and

Virgil Thomson Virgil Thomson (November 25, 1896 – September 30, 1989) was an American composer and critic. He was instrumental in the development of the "American Sound" in classical music. He has been described as a modernist, a neoromantic, a neoclassic ...

, and the subject of books, films (''

Chelsea Girls ''Chelsea Girls'' is a 1966 American experimental underground film directed by Andy Warhol and Paul Morrissey. The film was Warhol's first major commercial success after a long line of avant-garde art films (both feature-length and short). It w ...

'', 1966) and music. View_from_High_Line_3_(New_York)_(44520183804)

The

apartment complex on West 23rd was one of the world's largest apartment blocks when it opened in 1930, with a swimming pool,

, gymnasium, and doormen dressed as London bobbies. It was designed by Farrar and Watmough. It takes its name from the fashionable mid-19th century cottages that were once located there.

Penn South Penn South, officially known as Mutual Redevelopment Houses and formerly Penn Station South, is a limited-equity
on the ...

is a large limited-equity

housing cooperative A housing cooperative, or housing co-op, is a legal entity, usually a cooperative or a corporation, which owns real estate, consisting of one or more residential buildings; it is one type of housing tenure. Housing cooperatives are a distinc ...

constructed in 1962 by the

United Housing Foundation {{unreferenced, date=September 2019 The United Housing Foundation (UHF) was a real estate investment trust in New York that constructed numerous cooperative housing projects, including Rochdale Village in Queens and Co-op City in the Bronx. Purpo ...

and financed by the

International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union The International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU), whose members were employed in the women's clothing industry, was once one of the largest labor unions in the United States, one of the first U.S. unions to have a primarily female membe ...

. The development includes 2,820 apartments and covers six city blocks between

8th 8 (eight) is the natural number following 7 and preceding 9. In mathematics 8 is: * a composite number, its proper divisors being , , and . It is twice 4 or four times 2. * a power of two, being 2 (two cubed), and is the first number of t ...

and 9th Avenue and 23rd and 29th Street. In 2012, there were 6,000 names on a waiting list of prospective residents looking to purchase a unit in the development. Under the terms of agreements reached with the City of New York in 1986 and 2002, and separately with the

United States Department of Housing and Urban Development The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government. It administers federal housing and urban development laws. It is headed by the Secretary of Housing and Urb ...

, Penn South's eligibility for tax abatements offered by the Mitchell-Lama Housing Program has been extended to 2052.

Other

New_York_City_Chelsea_Piers-20120519-RM-170114

The

Chelsea Piers Chelsea Piers is a series of piers in Chelsea, on the West Side of Manhattan in New York City. Located to the west of the West Side Highway ( Eleventh Avenue) and Hudson River Park and to the east of the Hudson River, they were originally a pa ...

were the city's primary luxury ocean liner terminal from 1910 until 1935, when the growing size of ships made the complex inadequate. The RMS ''Titanic'' was headed to Pier 60 at the piers and the RMS ''Carpathia'' brought survivors to Pier 54 in the complex, which was destroyed in 2018 although ironwork remains. The northern piers are now part of an entertainment and sports complex operated by

Roland W. Betts Roland Whitney Betts (born May 25, 1946) is an American investor, film producer, developer, and owner of Chelsea Piers in New York City. A classmate and Delta Kappa Epsilon (DKE) fraternity brother of George W. Bush, Betts was the lead owner i ...

, and the southern piers are part of

Hudson River Park Hudson River Park is a waterfront park on the North River (Hudson River) that extends from 59th Street south to Battery Park in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The park, a component of the Manhattan Waterfront Greenway, stretches and ...

. The Hudson River Park, designed as a joint city/state park with non-traditional uses, runs along the Hudson River waterfront from 59th Street to the Battery and comprises most of the associated piers.

Chelsea Park Chelsea Park is a park in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, that dates back to 1910. The park has sports fields, basketball and handball courts, a children's playground and space for sitting. The surface is mostly tarmac or ...

is located between 9th and 10th Avenues, and between 27th and 28th Streets. It contains baseball diamonds, basketball courts and six handball courts.

Chelsea Studios Chelsea Studios, also known as Chelsea Television Studios, is an American television studio and sound stage located at 221 West 26th Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. Hist ...

, a

sound stage A sound stage (also written soundstage) is a soundproof, large structure, building, or room with large doors and high ceilings, used for the production of theatrical film-making and television productions, usually located on a secured movie or ...

on 26th Street, has been operating since 1914, and numerous movies and television shows have been produced there. The

Church of the Holy Apostles The Church of the Holy Apostles ( el, , ''Agioi Apostoloi''; tr, Havariyyun Kilisesi), also known as the ''Imperial Polyándreion'' (imperial cemetery), was a Byzantine Eastern Orthodox church in Constantinople, capital of the Eastern Roman E ...

was built in 1845–1848 to a design by

Minard Lefever Minard Lafever (1798–1854) was an American architect of churches and houses in the United States in the early nineteenth century. Life and career Lafever began life as a carpenter around 1820. At this period in the United States there were no ...

, with additions by Lefever in 1853–1854, and

transept A transept (with two semitransepts) is a transverse part of any building, which lies across the main body of the building. In cruciform churches, a transept is an area set crosswise to the nave in a cruciform ("cross-shaped") building withi ...

s by Charles Babcock added in 1858, this

Italianate The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian R ...

church was designated a

in 1966 and is listed on the

. It is Lefever's only surviving building in Manhattan. The building, which featured an octagonal spire, was burned in a serious fire in 1990, but

stained glass windows Stained glass is coloured glass as a material or works created from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant religious buildings. Although tradition ...

William Jay Bolton William Jay Bolton (31 August 1816 – 28 May 1884) was the first artist in the United States to design and manufacture figural stained glass windows.Clark, p. 40 ''Bolton was now prepared to undertake a larger project, an impressive array ...

survived, and the church reopened in April 1994 after a major restoration. The Episcopal parish is notable for hosting the city's largest program to feed the poor, and is the second and larger home of the

LGBT ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term is a ...

-oriented synagogue, Congregation Beth Simchat Torah. The General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church's college-like close is sometimes called "Chelsea Square". It consists of a city block of tree-shaded lawns between Ninth and Tenth Avenues and West 20th and 21st Streets. The campus is ringed by more than a dozen brick and brownstone buildings in

Gothic Revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

style. The oldest building on the campus dates from 1836. Most of the rest were designed as a group by architect

Charles Coolidge Haight Charles Coolidge Haight (March 17, 1841 – February 9, 1917) was an American architect who practiced in New York City. He designed most of the buildings at Columbia College's now-demolished old campus on Madison Avenue, and designed numerou ...

, under the guidance of the Dean, Augustus Hoffman.

Police and crime

Chelsea is patrolled by the 10th Precinct of the

NYPD The New York City Police Department (NYPD), officially the City of New York Police Department, established on May 23, 1845, is the primary municipal law enforcement agency within the City of New York, the largest and one of the oldest in ...

, located at 230 West 20th Street. The 10th Precinct ranked 61st safest out of 69 patrol areas for per-capita crime in 2010. , with a non-fatal assault rate of 34 per 100,000 people, Chelsea and Hell's Kitchen's rate of

violent crime A violent crime, violent felony, crime of violence or crime of a violent nature is a crime in which an offender or perpetrator uses or threatens to use harmful force upon a victim. This entails both crimes in which the violence, violent act is t ...

s per capita is less than that of the city as a whole. The incarceration rate of 313 per 100,000 people is lower than that of the city as a whole. The 10th Precinct has a lower crime rate than in the 1990s, with crimes across all categories having decreased by 74.8% between 1990 and 2018. The precinct reported 1 murder, 19 rapes, 81 robberies, 103 felony assaults, 78 burglaries, 744 grand larcenies, and 26 grand larcenies auto in 2018.

Fire safety

Chelsea is served by two fire stations of the

New York City Fire Department The New York City Fire Department, officially the Fire Department of the City of New York (FDNY), is an American department of the government of New York City that provides fire protection services, technical rescue/special operations services, ...

(FDNY). Engine Company 1/Ladder Company 24 is located at 142 West 31st Street, while Engine Company 3/Ladder Company 12/Battalion 7 is located at 146 West 19th Street. In addition,

FDNY EMS The New York City Fire Department Bureau of Emergency Medical Services (FDNY EMS) is a division of the New York City Fire Department (FDNY) in charge of emergency medical services for New York City. It was established on March 17, 1996, following ...

Station 7 is located at 512 West 23rd Street.

Health

Preterm Preterm birth, also known as premature birth, is the birth of a baby at fewer than 37 weeks gestational age, as opposed to full-term delivery at approximately 40 weeks. Extreme preterm is less than 28 weeks, very early preterm birth is between 2 ...

births in Chelsea and Hell's Kitchen are the same as the city average, though teenage births are less common. In Chelsea and Hell's Kitchen, there were 87 preterm births per 1,000 live births (compared to 87 per 1,000 citywide), and 9.9 teenage births per 1,000 live births (compared to 19.3 per 1,000 citywide). Chelsea and Hell's Kitchen have a low population of residents who are

uninsured Insurance is a means of protection from financial loss in which, in exchange for a fee, a party agrees to compensate another party in the event of a certain loss, damage, or injury. It is a form of risk management, primarily used to hedge ...

. In 2018, this population of uninsured residents was estimated to be 11%, slightly less than the citywide rate of 12%. The concentration of fine particulate matter, the deadliest type of

air pollutant Air pollution is the contamination of air due to the presence of substances in the atmosphere that are harmful to the health of humans and other living beings, or cause damage to the climate or to materials. There are many different types ...

, in Chelsea and Hell's Kitchen is , more than the city average. Eleven percent of Chelsea and Hell's Kitchen residents are smokers, which is less than the city average of 14% of residents being smokers. In Chelsea and Hell's Kitchen, 10% of residents are

obese Obesity is a medical condition, sometimes considered a disease, in which excess body fat has accumulated to such an extent that it may negatively affect health. People are classified as obese when their body mass index (BMI)—a person's we ...

, 5% are

diabetic Diabetes, also known as diabetes mellitus, is a group of metabolic disorders characterized by a high blood sugar level (hyperglycemia) over a prolonged period of time. Symptoms often include frequent urination, increased thirst and increased app ...

, and 18% have

high blood pressure Hypertension (HTN or HT), also known as high blood pressure (HBP), is a long-term medical condition in which the blood pressure in the arteries is persistently elevated. High blood pressure usually does not cause symptoms. Long-term high bl ...

—compared to the citywide averages of 24%, 11%, and 28% respectively. In addition, 14% of children are obese, compared to the citywide average of 20%. Ninety-one percent of residents eat some fruits and vegetables every day, which is higher than the city's average of 87%. In 2018, 86% of residents described their health as "good", "very good", or "excellent", more than the city's average of 78%. For every supermarket in Chelsea and Hell's Kitchen, there are 7 bodegas. The nearest major hospitals are

Beth Israel Medical Center Mount Sinai Beth Israel is a 799-bed teaching hospital in Manhattan. It is part of the Mount Sinai Health System, a nonprofit health system formed in September 2013 by the merger of Continuum Health Partners and Mount Sinai Medical Center, and ...

Stuyvesant Town Stuyvesant may refer to: People * Peter Stuyvesant (1592–1672), the last governor of New Netherland * Peter Gerard Stuyvesant (1778–1847), lawyer, landowner and philanthropist. * Rutherfurd Stuyvesant (1843–1909), socialite and land developer ...

, as well as the

Bellevue Hospital Center Bellevue Hospital (officially NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue and formerly known as Bellevue Hospital Center) is a hospital in New York City and the oldest public hospital in the United States. One of the largest hospitals in the United States b ...

and

NYU Langone Medical Center NYU Langone Health is an academic medical center located in New York City, New York, United States. The health system consists of NYU Grossman School of Medicine and NYU Long Island School of Medicine, both part of New York University (NYU), and m ...

Kips Bay Kips Bay, or Kip's Bay, is a neighborhood on the east side of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is roughly bounded by East 34th Street to the north, the East River to the east, East 27th and/or 23rd Streets to the south, and Third Aven ...

Post offices and ZIP Codes

Chelsea is located within two primary ZIP Codes. The area north of 24th Street is in 10001 while the area south of 24th Street is in 10011. The

United States Postal Service The United States Postal Service (USPS), also known as the Post Office, U.S. Mail, or Postal Service, is an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government responsible for providing postal service in the U ...

operates four post offices in Chelsea: * James A. Farley Station – 421 8th Avenue; the main post office for New York City * London Terrace Station – 234 10th Avenue * Old Chelsea Station – 217 West 18th Street * Port Authority Station – 74 9th Avenue In addition, the Centralized Parcel Post and the Morgan General Mail Facility are located at 341 9th Avenue. The USPS also operates a vehicle maintenance facility on the block bounded by 11th Avenue, 24th Street, 12th Avenue, and 26th Street. This facility has the ZIP Code 10199.

Education

Chelsea and Hell's Kitchen generally have a higher rate of college-educated residents than the rest of the city . A majority of residents age 25 and older (78%) have a college education or higher, while 6% have less than a high school education and 17% are high school graduates or have some college education. By contrast, 64% of Manhattan residents and 43% of city residents have a college education or higher. The percentage of Chelsea and Hell's Kitchen students excelling in math rose from 61% in 2000 to 80% in 2011, and reading achievement increased from 66% to 68% during the same time period. Chelsea and Hell's Kitchen's rate of elementary school student absenteeism is lower than the rest of New York City. In Chelsea and Hell's Kitchen, 16% of elementary school students missed twenty or more days per

school year A school is an educational institution designed to provide learning spaces and learning environments for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is sometimes compulsor ...

, less than the citywide average of 20%. Additionally, 81% of high school students in Chelsea and Hell's Kitchen graduate on time, more than the citywide average of 75%.

Schools

There are numerous public schools in Chelsea, including PS 11, also known as the William T. Harris School; PS 33, the Chelsea School; the O. Henry School (IS 70); Liberty High School For Newcomers; Lab School; the Museum School; and the

Bayard Rustin Educational Complex The Bayard Rustin Educational Complex – also known as the Humanities Educational Complex – at West 18th Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, is a "vertical campus" of the ...

, which houses six small schools. The

was founded as Textile High School in 1930, later renamed to Straubenmuller Textile High School, then Charles Evans Hughes High School. In the 1990s, it was renamed the Bayard Rustin High School for the Humanities after

civil rights Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life of ...

activist

Bayard Rustin Bayard Rustin (; March 17, 1912 – August 24, 1987) was an African American leader in social movements for civil rights, socialism, nonviolence, and gay rights. Rustin worked with A. Philip Randolph on the March on Washington Movement, in 19 ...

. The high school closed in 2012 after a grading scandal, but the building had already started being used as a "vertical campus" housing multiple small schools.

Quest to Learn Quest to Learn (Q2L) is a public middle and high school in New York City, United States. The school is operated by the New York City Department of Education. It is located in the Bayard Rustin Educational Complex in the Chelsea, Manhattan, Chelsea ...

, Hudson High School of Learning Technologies, Humanities Preparatory Academy, James Baldwin School, Landmark High School, and Manhattan Business Academy are the six constituent schools in the complex. Private schools in the neighborhood include Avenues: The World School, a K-12 school; and the Catholic

Xavier High School A multitude of schools and universities have been named after St. Francis Xavier, a Spanish Roman Catholic saint and co-founder of the Society of Jesus. This page lists notable educational institutions named after St. Xavier, arranged by country a ...

, a secondary school. Chelsea is also home to the

Fashion Institute of Technology The Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) is a public college in New York City. It is part of the State University of New York (SUNY) and focuses on art, business, design, mass communication, and technology connected to the fashion industry. It ...

, a specialized SUNY unit established in 1944 that serves as a training ground for the city's fashion and design industries. The

School of Visual Arts The School of Visual Arts New York City (SVA NYC) is a private for-profit art school in New York City. It was founded in 1947 and is a member of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design. History This school was started by ...

, a for-profit

art school An art school is an educational institution with a primary focus on the visual arts, including fine art – especially illustration, painting, photography, sculpture, and graphic design. Art schools can offer elementary, secondary, post-seco ...

, and the public

High School of Fashion Industries High School of Fashion Industries (HSFI) is a secondary school located in Manhattan, New York City, New York. HSFI serves grades 9 through 12 and is a part of the New York City Department of Education. HSFI has magnet programs related to fashion d ...

also have a presence in the design fields. The neighborhood is also home to the

of the Episcopal Church, the oldest seminary in the

Anglican Communion The Anglican Communion is the third largest Christian communion after the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. Founded in 1867 in London, the communion has more than 85 million members within the Church of England and other ...

. The

Center for Jewish History The Center for Jewish History is a partnership of five Jewish history, scholarship, and art organizations in New York City: American Jewish Historical Society, American Sephardi Federation, Leo Baeck Institute New York, Yeshiva University Museum, ...

, a consortium of several national research organizations, is a unified library, exhibition, conference, lecture, and performance venue, located on 16th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.

Libraries

NYPL_Muhlenberg_Branch,_Manhattan_(cropped)

The

New York Public Library The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second largest public library in the United States (behind the Library of Congress ...

(NYPL) operates two branches in Chelsea. The Muhlenberg branch is located at 209 West 23rd Street. The three-story Carnegie library building opened in 1906 and was renovated in 2000. The

Andrew Heiskell Braille and Talking Book Library Andrew is the English form of a given name common in many countries. In the 1990s, it was among the top ten most popular names given to boys in English-speaking countries. "Andrew" is frequently shortened to "Andy" or "Drew". The word is derived ...

is located at 40 West 20th Street. The current building opened in 1990; the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...

has designated the Heiskell branch as the city's "Regional Library of the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped" for

Braille Braille (Pronounced: ) is a tactile writing system used by people who are visually impaired, including people who are Blindness, blind, Deafblindness, deafblind or who have low vision. It can be read either on Paper embossing, embossed paper ...

media and

audiobook An audiobook (or a talking book) is a recording of a book or other work being read out loud. A reading of the complete text is described as "unabridged", while readings of shorter versions are abridgements. Spoken audio has been available in sc ...

Transportation

The neighborhood is served by the

New York City Bus MTA Regional Bus Operations (RBO) is the surface transit division of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). It was created in 2008 to consolidate all bus operations in New York City operated by the MTA. , MTA Regional Bus Operations ru ...

routes.

New York City Subway The New York City Subway is a rapid transit system owned by the government of New York City and leased to the New York City Transit Authority, an affiliate agency of the state-run Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). Opened on October 2 ...

routes include the on Seventh Avenue, the on Eighth Avenue, and the on Sixth Avenue. The 34th Street – Hudson Yards station on the opened in September 2015 with its main entrance in Chelsea.

Notable people

Andy Bey Andrew W. Bey (born October 28, 1939) is an American jazz singer and pianist. Bey has a wide vocal range, with a four-octave baritone voice. Raised in Newark, New Jersey,Adler, David R"Andy Bey" ''JazzTimes'', April 25, 2019. Accessed December ...

(born 1939), jazz singer and pianist.Adler, David R
"Andy Bey"
, ''

JazzTimes ''JazzTimes'' is an American magazine devoted to jazz. Published 10 times a year, it was founded in Washington, D.C. in 1970 by Ira Sabin as the newsletter ''Radio Free Jazz'' to complement his record store. Coverage After a decade of growth ...

'', April 25, 2019. Accessed December 14, 2020. "We are sitting in Bey's studio apartment on the western edge of Manhattan's Chelsea district, where he has lived for the last 13 years. "

References

Notes

Citations

Bibliography

External links

Manhattan Community Board 4
��The Chelsea & Clinton/Hell's Kitchen Community Board {{Authority control Neighborhoods in Manhattan Gay villages in New York (state) Art gallery districts LGBT culture in New York City Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Manhattan

History

Early development

Industrialization and entertainment district

Early and mid-20th centuries

Late 20th century to present

Demographics

Culture

Landmarks and places of interest

Culinary

Cultural

Industrial and commercial

Residential

Other

Police and crime

Fire safety

Health

Post offices and ZIP Codes

Education

Schools

Libraries

Transportation

Notable people

See also

References

Notes

Citations

Bibliography

External links