population
is still mainly multi-ethnic, lower middle class working families, with a significant
number of aspiring actors taking advantage of the low-rent tenement apartments and the
proximity to the theater district. The basic tenement design is the railroad flat with all
the rooms in a row, the bathtub in the kitchen and the toilet in adjacent closet. The play
is about one such tenement and the aspiring actress who lives there.The history of the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood includes 19th century street gangs like The Parlor Mob, the Dead Rabbits and the Gorillas and the "strong-arm squad" of police from the 37th Street station that battled them. Neighborhood residents who patronized the stand of Henry The Frankfurter Man at 40th Street and 9th Avenue knew enough to avoid the dangerous alley on 41st Street between 9th and 10th Avenues that was known as the League of Nations. The old 16th Precinct stationhouse on 47th Street saw appearances by Mae West and Legs Diamond, who were booked there not by their agents but by the local police.
Hell's Kitchen has spawned the famous, like U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan and boxer Johnny Dundee, who was both world featherweight and world junior lightweight champion, and the infamous, like the recently convicted "Westies" gang of murderers for hire.
Hell's Kitchen Has A Tub In It follows a succession of creative works set in the neighborhood, from Tenth Avenue Angel, a 1948 film starring the young Margaret O'Brien, to the now classic West Side Story.
Sources: The New York Times
Bill Herries, "The Old Westside Hell's Kitchen"
Ring Magazine
