A plaque remaining from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem.

Above, a 1934 plaque from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem. Discarded as trash in 2006. Now a Popeyes fast food restaurant on Google Maps.

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Entry from April 08, 2013
Hell’s Kitchener (inhabitant of Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan)

“Hell’s Kitchener” is the name of an inhabitant of Hell’s Kitchen, in the borough of Manhattan. The name “Hell’s Kitchener” has been cited in print since at least 1899.
 
The jocular nickname of “Hell’s Kitchenette” was used in print in 1984, but has otherwise been rarely used.
 
 
Wikipedia: Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan
Hell’s Kitchen, also known as Clinton and Midtown West, is a neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City between 34th Street and 59th Street, from Eighth Avenue to the Hudson River. The area provides transportation, hospital and warehouse infrastructure support to the Midtown Manhattan business district. Its gritty reputation kept real estate prices below those of most other areas of Manhattan until the early 1990s; rents have increased dramatically since and are currently above the Manhattan average.
 
Once a bastion of poor and working-class Irish Americans, Hell’s Kitchen’s proximity to Midtown has changed it over the last three decades of the 20th century and into the new millennium. The 1969 edition of 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. Today, the area is gentrifying.
 
Old Fulton NY Post Cards
27 July 1899, Oswego (NY) Daily Palladium, “Our New York Letter: All About the Metropolitan District of ‘Hell’s Kitchen’” by Dexter Marshall, pg. 2, col. 6:
Though Hell’s Kitcheners generally will not admit the locality ever deserved its title, all agree that King Morrison came rightfully by his, but there are some among the older residents who declare he wasn’t all bad.
 
Old Fulton NY Post Cards
18 August 1900, New York (NY) Press, “Rioting for Riot’s Sake,” pg. 6, col. 1:
The drollest contribution is that of a Southern sage, who speaks of our Hell’s Kitcheners as having had their “passions inflamed by the murder of an officer of the law!”
 
13 December 1937, New York (NY) Times, “Letters to the Times,” pg. 26:
Hell’s Kitcheners Handicapped
 
Google Books
No Place Like Home
By Patience Abbe
New York, NY: J. Messner, Inc.
1940
Pg. 192:
Some tough Irish Hell’s Kitcheners saw this brown derby hat.
 
Google Books
Eagle Eye
By Hortense Calisher
New York, NY: Arbor House
1973
Pg. 212:
Still a lot of patriots in the parish here, sons and grandsons of the old Hell’s Kitcheners.
 
Google Books
16 July 1984, New York magazine, pg. 2 ad:
Where
Eastsiders and Westsiders
Uptowners and Downtowners
Sohoers and Nohoers
Murray Hillians and Tudor Citians
Tribecians and Sutton Placians
Central Parkers and Gramercy Parkers
Hell’s Kitchenettes and Brooklynettes
Chelseaites and Riverside Drivers
(...)
American Festival Cafe
at Rockefeller Center
 
Google Books
Acting—Make It Your Business:
How to Avoid Mistakes and Achieve Success as a Working Actor

By Paul Russell
New York, NY: Back Stage Books
2008
Pg. 99:
An Irish Italian, born-and-raised “Hell’s Kitchener,” I am in close proximity of your office and look forward to our meeting at your earliest convenience.
 
Twitter
Curbed NY
‏@CurbedNY
After a couple years of making Hell’s Kitcheners say “Wha?” our first look inside the incredible glassy Dillon: http://curbed.cc/cX6lDM
8:12 AM - 29 Apr 10

Posted by Barry Popik
New York CityWorkers/People • Monday, April 08, 2013 • Permalink


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