Any of you who have grown up on a diet of American gangster movies have probably heard of the Manhattan neighborhood called Hell’s Kitchen. This neighborhood has been featured in movies from State of Grace to Sleepers and was once the home of notorious Irish American gangs. Those days are long past though, and today it just looks like a slightly more run-down neighborhood with signs that construction is going on and it is getting a facelift.

There is also a small flea market held in this neighborhood every Saturday and Sunday and today we went down to see if there was anything interesting. Walking the short distance from Broadway to Hell’s Kitchen, I wondered if I would still see the 1920s buildings that once housed gangsters such as Owney Madden. Most of those buildings seem to be long gone, although there are occasional signs of aging buildings that probably wouldn’t have been out of place a century ago.

This part of town has a more gritty look

Some buildings that have seen better days

The flea market didn’t seem to have much going on. Maybe it was the cold, or maybe we were a bit late (got there around 2ish), but whatever the reason it seems that there were fewer stalls than buildings which had seen the last century through. The few stalls that were there, sold everything from second-hand boots to glassware and trinkets.

Once back in Jersey City, we had our first snowfall since Chicago. It didn’t last long, but it was nice to see it finally snowed after all the cold.

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This entry was posted on Monday, February 11th, 2008 at 9:44 am and is filed under Jersey City, New York. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.