Hell's Kitchen and the Battle for Urban Space

Hell’s Kitchen is among Manhattan’s most storied and studiedneighborhoods. A working-class district situated next to the WestSide’s middle- and upper-class residential districts, it has long attractedthe focus of artists and urban planners, writers and reformers.Now, Joseph Varga takes us on a tour of Hell’s Kitchenwith an eye toward what we usually take for granted: space, and,particularly, how urban spaces are produced, controlled, and contestedby different class and political forces.Varga examines events and locations in a crucial period in theformation of the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood, the Progressive Era,and describes how reformers sought to shape the behavior and experiencesof its inhabitants by manipulating the built environment.But those inhabitants had plans of their own, and thus ensueda struggle over the very spaces—public and private, commercialand personal—in which they lived. Varga insightfully considers theinteractions between human actors, the built environment, andthe natural landscape, and suggests how the production of andstruggle over space influence what we think and how we live. Inthe process, he raises incisive questions about the meaning ofcommunity, citizenship, and democracy itself.