No one can say for sure how the neighborhood got its name. One story has it that a notoriously horrid tenement house lent its name to the area. Another story claims the name came about when a 19th century cop was watching a riot on West 39th Street and quipped, "Hell's a mild climate; this is Hell's Kitchen."

Whatever the origin of the name, Hell's Kitchen is the area of Manhattan between 34th Street and 59th Street that extends west from Eighth Avenue to the Hudson River.

It has been home to New York's poorest immigrants, deplorable tenement houses, sweatshop factories, slaughterhouses,...