Hell's Kitchen—also known as Clinton, or Midtown West on real estate listings—is a neighborhood on the West Side of Midtown Manhattan in New York City, New York, United States. It is generally bordered by 34th Street (or 41st Street) to the south, 59th Street to the north, Eighth Avenue to the east, and the Hudson River to the west.
Hell's Kitchen had long been a bastion of poor and working-class Irish Americans. Its gritty reputation has long held real-estate prices below those of most other areas of Manhattan. By 1969, the City Planning Commission's Plan for New York City reported that development pressures related to its Midtown location were driving people of modest means from the area. Gentrification has accelerated since the early 1980s, and rents have risen rapidly.
In addition to its long-established Irish-American and Hispanic-American populations, Hell's Kitchen has a large LGBTQ population and is home to many LGBTQ bars and businesses. The neighborhood has long been a home to fledgling and working actors; it is the home of the Actors Studio training school and sits near Broadway theatres.
Hell's Kitchen is part of Manhattan Community District 4.
The neighborhood overlaps Times Square and the Theater District to the east at Eighth Avenue. On its southeast border, it overlaps the Garment District also on Eighth Avenue. Two landmarks are located here – the New Yorker Hotel at 481 Eighth Avenue, and the Manhattan Center building at the northwest corner of 34th Street and Eighth Avenue. Included in the transition area on Eighth Avenue are the Port Authority Bus Terminal at 42nd Street, the Pride of Midtown fire station (from which an entire shift, 15 firefighters, died at the World Trade Center), several theatres including Studio 54, the original soup stand of Seinfelds "The Soup Nazi", and the Hearst Tower. Part of the southern edge of Hell's Kitchen, on Ninth Avenue between 35th and 40th streets, is designated as the Paddy's Market Historic District, added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2022.
The western border of the neighborhood is the Hudson River at the Hudson River Park and West Side Highway.
According to an article by Kirkley Greenwell, published online by the Hell's Kitchen Neighborhood Association:
Local historian Mary Clark explained the name thus: