My great-great-grandfather arrived in Hell’s Kitchen in 1839 and the family stayed there until my Father left when he married my Mom. My Father, born in 1909, grew up in Hell’s Kitchen and told me many stories about that area. He told me how he would sometimes play softball with the "local guys" on l0th Avenue and on occasion Marty Madden, a bootlegger during Prohibition, who owned the "Cotton Club" in Harlem, would join them. Marty was one of the Madden Mob who controlled “Hells’s Kitchen.” When my Fther was getting his driver ’s license, it was one of the Madden brothers who loaned my Dad a car. When Madden was being threatened with exportation (he was from England and the government was trying to send him back), my Father gave out petitions to be signed while working as a truck driver and he collected hundreds. (Madden was allowed to stay in New York). My Father sometimes delivered "bootleg" liquor to the Cotton Club by truck. My Father admitted to me that when he was a young boy he daydreamed about becoming a "numbers runner" since he always thought they made "good money." Many of the buildings in the “Hell’s Kitchen” area had stables on the main floor (today those stable areas are now stores, car repair shops, etc . My Father told me the bathrooms were down the hall. My Father's grandfather and uncles were owners of horses and wagons and they kept their horses in these stables. They sold vegetables in the streets of New York City. (I was once talking to someone who was bragging about her family and obviously attempting to impress me. When she asked me what my family did, I sweetly answered that they were in "produce"). I was very lucky that my Father was still alive when I started my family search and I sat with him many nights asking him about his family. To give you an idea of the area (this would be in the very early 1900's): My grandparents' first apartment had three rooms on the third floor and they later moved downstairs to the second floor to a cold water flat with a bathroom (toilet only) shared by two families. Bathing was done at public baths and one could also "wash near the stove." My grandmother did her wash by hand but eventually she sent it out and it was returned to her wet. She then had to carry it upstairs to the roof to hang it out. The apartment was heated by a coal stove which was also used as an oven. To give you an idea of a workingman's life in the late 1800's to early 1900's: My great-grandfather woke at 4:00 a.m., hooked up a team of horses to his wagon at a stable on 36th Street between 10th and 11th Avenue, picked up pigs at the freight yard and rode them to Rohe's Brothers, a pork dealer "similar to Merkels," which was across the street from the stable where he kept his horses. During the day he went to a market downtown and bought produce (vegetables and fruit) and sold it from his wagons with his sons. On some afternoons he drove a horse-pulled coach (which he also owned) to the cemetery for funerals. The cemetery (Calvary Cemetery) was in Queens and he had to travel over the 59th Street Bridge to get there. (For funerals he used a "better team of horses" which he also owned. He also owned a hansom which one of his sons drove.). Late in the afternoon when he was not busy driving his horse and coach for the funerals, he could be found working in the stable with his sons. As you can see, life was very hard in those days. When I asked my Father if my great-grandfather was a rich man (since he owned all those horses, carriages, etc), his response was, "How could anyone be rich if you were raising twelve children" My Father told me the that the area was a very "mixed" neighborhood (meaning people of all nationalities lived there). Trains ran above ground from St. John's Park which was a New York Central freight station, up West Street by the river, on to 10th Avenue and then up 11th Avenue. 11th Avenue was called "Death Avenue" because of the amount of people killed by the trains. I know this is not a great description of the area but I hope it helps to give you an idea of what it was like there. Dorothy