Starting west of Eighth Avenue and the north side of 43rd Street, city zoning regulations generally limit buildings to six stories.

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 Seinfeld's "The Soup Nazi", and the Hearst Tower.

[5] The area between the rail corridor at Pennsylvania Station and the West Side Yard and 42nd Street, and east of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, is also known as Hell's Kitchen South.

According to the Irish Cultural Society of the Garden City Area: When, in 1835, Davy Crockett said, "In my part of the country, when you meet an Irishman, you find a first-rate gentleman; but these are worse than savages; they are too mean to swab hell's kitchen", he was referring to the Five Points.

[10]Local historian Mary Clark explained the name thus: ...first appeared in print on September 22, 1881 when a New York Times reporter went to the West 30s with a police guide to get details of a multiple murder there.

[11] But the most common version traces it to the story of "Dutch Fred the Cop", a veteran policeman, who with his rookie partner, was watching a small riot on West 39th Street near Tenth Avenue.

"[12]The 1929 book Manna-Hatin: The Story of New York states that the Panic of 1857 led to the formation of gangs "in the notorious 'Gas House District' at Twenty-First Street and the East River, or in 'Hell's Kitchen', in the West Thirties.

In 1911, New York Hospital bought a full city block largely of the Hopper property, between 54th and 55th Streets, Eleventh and Twelfth Avenues.

[26] Seventy acres of the Leakes', later the Nortons' property, extending north from 42nd to 46th Street and from Broadway to the river, were purchased before 1807 by John Jacob Astor and William Cutting, who held it before dividing it into building lots as the district became more suburban.

The first was construction of the Hudson River Railroad, whose initial leg – the 40 mi (64 km) to Peekskill – was completed on September 29, 1849, By the end of 1849, it stretched to Poughkeepsie and in 1851 it extended to Albany.

Irish immigrants – mostly refugees from the Great Famine – found work on the docks and railroad along the Hudson River and established shantytowns there.

[38] To prevent the convention center from sparking a development boom that would beget the rest of the master plan with its consequent displacement, the Clinton Planning Council and Daniel Gutman, their environmental planner, proposed that the convention center and all major development be located south of 42nd Street, where public policy had already left tracts of vacant land.

But in exchange, and after the defeat of a bond issue that would have funded a 48th Street "people mover",[40] the City first abandoned the rest of the 1969–70 master plan[41] and then gave the neighborhood a special zoning district to restrict further redevelopment.

Later, in 1978, when the city could not afford the higher cost of constructing the 44th Street convention center over water, the Mayor and Governor chose the rail yard site originally proposed by the local community.

Although Weissman was never linked to the harassment, he and his wife made top billing in the 1985 edition of The Village Voice's annual list, "The Dirty Dozen: New York's Worst Landlords.

In September 2007, the fire department evacuated the remaining seven residents from the building, citing dangerous conditions, and padlocked the front door.

[61] After the recession was over, developers invested in areas like Times Square, eastern Hell's Kitchen, and Chelsea, but mostly skipped the Far West Side.

Ladder 21, the "Pride of Hell's Kitchen", located on 38th Street between Ninth and Tenth Avenues, and stationed with Engine Co. 34, lost seven firefighters on September 11.

[70] In 1989, the David Childs- and Frank Williams-designed Worldwide Plaza established a beachhead when it was built at the former Madison Square Garden site, a full city block between 49th and 50th Streets and between Eighth and Ninth Avenues that was exempt from special district zoning rules.

An indication of how fast real estate prices rose in the neighborhood was a 2004 transaction involving the Howard Johnson's Motel at 52nd Street and Eighth Avenue.

In June, Vikram Chatwal's Hampshire Hotel Group bought the motel and adjoining Studio Instrument Rental building for $9 million.

The main concept of the HKNA plan was to allow major new development while protecting the existing residential core area between Ninth and Tenth avenues.

[86][87] Many famous actors and entertainers have resided there, including Burt Reynolds, Rip Torn, Bob Hope, Charlton Heston, James Dean, Madonna, Jerry Seinfeld, Larry David, Alicia Keys, and Sylvester Stallone.

[92] The Comedy Central satirical news program The Daily Show was taped in Hell's Kitchen since its debut until late 2021 when it moved to Times Square.

Next door at 511 West 54th Street is Ars Nova theater, home to emerging artists Joe Iconis and breakout star Jesse Eisenberg, among others.

Notable establishments on Ninth Avenue include Mickey Spillane's, part-owned by the mobster's son, who also owns Mr. Biggs on Tenth Avenue/43rd Street.

Previously a haven for illegal activity, in 1978 the West 48th Street Block Association joined with the Green Guerillas to secure a lease for the site to renovate it for community use.

When the city put it up for auction in 1981, residents formed the Committee to Save Clinton Community Garden, through appeals to Mayor Ed Koch and unsuccessful efforts to purchase the site.

[81]: 14 In 2018, the concentration of fine particulate matter, the deadliest type of air pollutant, in Hell's Kitchen and Chelsea is 0.0098 mg/m3 (9.8×10−9 oz/cu ft), was more than the city average.

[81]: 6  The percentage of Hell's Kitchen and Chelsea students excelling in math rose from 61% in 2000 to 80% in 2011, and reading achievement increased from 66% to 68% during the same time period.