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 February 17, 2008
Hell’s Pantry

Hell’s Pantry is a neighborhood name spin-off from Hell’s Kitchen. Entertainment writer Earl Wilson (see citations below, from as early as 1951) claimed that “Hell’s Kitchen” is West of Tenth Avenue and “Hell’s Pantry” is East of Tenth Avenue. The boundaries of “Hell’s Pantry” are not distinct today and the term is not frequently used.
   
Hell’s Kitchenette is a similar Hell’s Kitchen spin-off name.
   
       
PlanetOut
Devilishly fun: New York’s Hell’s Kitchen heats up
by Dan Allen
Not so long ago, Greenwich Village seemed destined to reign eternal as the central neighborhood of New York City gay life. With a long counterculture history and as the collective-consciousness birthplace (courtesy 1969’s Stonewall uprising) of international outness, the Village was a natural gay ground zero.
 
That is, until local rents soared and ‘80s and ‘90s gays forged north of 14th Street to recrown Chelsea as the queer habitat of choice, seemingly for the coming new millennium. That is, until local rents soared again, forcing the latest foray even further northward into the onetime NYC nether region of Hell’s Kitchen, a pink surge that’s earned the area a host of new nicknames, from Hellsea and NoChe (both nods to southern neighbor Chelsea) to Hell’s Pantry and Hell’s Kitchenette.
 
14 June 1951, Zanesville (OH) Times Recorder, “Strictly From Hell’s Pantry” by Earl Wilson, pg. 4:
NEW YORK—There was a garbage can almost in front of the door at 433 W. 45th St.—way over in Hell’s Pantry.
 
No, not Hell’s Kitchen. This place I’m taking you is between 9th and 10th Aves. East of 10th is Hell’s Pantry. West of 10th is Hell’s Kitchen. That’s what they told me, a “furriner” from Ohio.
 
17 August 1970, Galveston (TX) Daily News, Earl Wilson column, pg. 9, col. 2:
NEW YORK—And so a new sex symbol is born—a 260-pounder from New York’s tough neighborhood, Hell’s Pantry, next to Hell’s Kitchen, who’s a little mystified that they’re saying he’s a threat to MARCELLLO MASTROIANNI.
 
stirring
Wednesday, July 13, 2005
There Goes the Neighborhood
There are these enclaves in New York. Area where time has stopped. Whereas real estate developers have taken over the obvious parts of Manhattan (Upper West Side, all of central Midtown, Chelsea), and begun building in the trendy areas (Lower East Side, Alphabet City), there are some neighborhoods that still have an old world charm, like the Upper East Side and Hell’s Kitchen. More specifically, Hell’s Pantry. Oh fuck it, this neighborhood is Hell’s Armpit and it looks and smells like it. I’m not talking about the tree lined streets running between 8th and 10th Avenues from 43rd right up to Colubus Circle. I’m talking about the part of New York City that can only be described as gray, even on sunny days. From Penn Station to Port Authority from 9th to 11th Avenues, you are faced with three story buildings, some absolutely crumbling, bodegas, and tons of dive bars, where you can start drinking at 7am and be pissed in under eight dollars (believe me, i know). This is not a desireable part of the city. 
 
Not WIthout My Guest Packet
5.02.2007
Zipper Tavern
Last night I went for drinks at the new Zipper Factory Tavern in Hell’s Pantry. Located on 37th between 8th & 9th, this new gastropub is an extension of the Zipper Factory Theater.
   
Curbed
CurbedWire: Fire in Hell’s Pantry, RAMSA Threatened!!
Thursday, May 24, 2007, by Lockhart
WEST 30S—Reports a tipster with keen sense of how we determine the newsworthiness of an item around here: “Huge flames at 34th and 10 across from Bob Stern’s Office…helicopters and tons of trucks, we’re on 38th and can see huge orange flames from the roof.”
 
Curbed
Crumbling of NYC: View to a Sidewalk Collapse
Tuesday, August 14, 2007, by Lockhart
We begin the day high above West 36th Street, where a Curbed phototipster sends along this eagle-eye view of yesterday’s sidewalk collapse at the construction site at 148 West 36th. Hell’s Pantry, living up to its name.

Posted by {name}
New York CityNeighborhoods • Sunday, February 17, 2008 • Permalink


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