Like many Manhattan neighborhoods, Hell's Kitchen has gone through astonishing changes over the course of it's160-year-plus history, beginning as one of the world's most squalid and violent slums and ending up as a fully gentrified and very gay--perhaps Manhattan's gayest--gayborhood of the moment.

Hell's Kitchen was born in the mid-19th Century as Irish immigrants poured by the thousands off the boats along the west side docks, erecting shanty towns on the muddy mid-Manhattan island shores of the Hudson River. You can still find several Irish pubs along 11th Avenue (the original waterfront) dating back to that period--and after a century, the 2-4-1 whiskey nights are still not to be missed. After your fourth or fifth Glenmorangie, everyone is gay. (My taste runs to single malt Scotch rather than Irish whiskey.)

The good news is that the rush towards gentrification and the renovation and restoration of old existing buildings along with many official landmark buildings and institutions (including the prestigious Actors Studio) has mostly preserved the area's very low-rise nature as a unique visual within a jungle of soaring skyscrapers. And, in fact, Hell's Kitchen has had a solid gay core since the 1930s for one very simple reason: Broadway. The neighborhood's eastern boundary, also known as Broadway and the Theater District coupled with government subsidized housing for members of the performing arts guarantees a gay core regardless of the onslaught of gentrification, reputation and tourists.

Having lived in this neighborhood for 17 years, it's been fascinating to witness and experience the overt gayification and gentrification. When I first arrived in Hell's Kitchen, it was predominantly poor, extremely diverse ethnically, a haven for struggling theater folk and a center for the underbelly of the city's gay sex trade. Some 17 years later, mostly thanks to the economic explosion and mainstream commercialization of Times Square, adjacent Hell's Kitchen has gone from trannie hookers, junkies and hustler bars to multi-starred restaurants, chic gay bars like Therapy, Vlada, Posh and the Xth Avenue Lounge and an epidemic of luxury apartment buildings encircling the renovations and rent-controlled and stabilized holdouts. In 1990, Hell's Kitchen was fringe gay; today it is mainstream and very affluent gay.

And then there's the name. Oh, how I love the name. Residents have always been fiercely proud of it and still are. The efforts by the city, cartographers and real estate developers to compel residents to revert to the "official" name (which is Clinton) is still today a complete failure. Call it Clinton and immediately identify yourself as an outsider and foe.

While there are several urban legends accounting for the origin of the name ranging from a comment made by Davy Crockett to a bad translation of Dutch, the most widely accepted explanation is that the neighborhood was described by a cop as being as dangerous as Hell whereupon his partner disagreed saying that the streets were so dangerous that it was more like Hell's Kitchen. In any case, the name has been kicking around since the 19th Century and has been the stuff of legends.

Slaughter on Tenth Avenue depicted a neighborhood in chaos, violent crime lurking behind every street corner.

West Side Story took us into a world of ethnic street gangs rumbling often until death.

After years of being something of a no man's land, everything changed in 1988 when a gutsy real estate developer took a huge pioneering gamble and soon a 45 story luxury apartment building, Riverbank West, soared over the tenements, warehouses and squalor of 11th Avenue. It was originally designed to open on to 42nd Street, but in the late 80s, 42nd Street was one of the least desirable and most wretched places in town. Anyone who could afford to live in this new building would rather have died than admit to a 42nd Street address. So they built a gated courtyard on the 43rd Street side and targeted queers who were already exploring the questionable streets of Chelsea, just a few blocks south of Hell's Kitchen. The building was soon overflowing with a mix of kept boys, male escorts, porn stars, club kids, some theater folk and me. The concierge estimated that 85 percent of the building's 420 units were occupied by queers. One could argue that this was the tipping point that resulted in the escalating migration of queers from Chelsea and The Village.

A second tipping point occurred when club super star Michael Alig brutally murdered one of his entourage in this already notoriously gay building. Alig and his club kids kept a 24/7 party going in this building and you could be certain to find CK clad hotties running between floors in the stairwells at all hours of the night. The roof with its spectacular views was pretty much of a "back room" after dark and entirely so after midnight. In fact, in some circles you would hear references to The Riverbank Position. This involved bending and the risk of plummeting 45 stories down to 42nd Street only to be found in the morning splattered and pantless. As far as I know there never were any casualties. As far as i know. Unless you count Angel Melendez--but he didn't fall, rather he was run through the Cuisinart and then tossed in the river.

When Michael Alig was finally arrested this became "The Michael Alig Building" and to this day, queers will look at me wide-eyed when they discover that I live in "that" building. Yes, I knew Michael in a neighborly, laundry room, elevator sort of way. Nice kid, very courteous, cute as a button, a tad too homicidal.

Today, an almost completely gentrified Hell's Kitchen is the new gay epicenter of the world's largest gay community. It's the place to be--that is if you're willing to live with a stable of roommates or have an income near or beyond six figures.

Pizza joints have been replaced by $300 dinners for two on Tenth Avenue. There are still plenty of charming ethnic restaurants up and down Ninth Avenue but you often hear of them fighting for their lives as the commercial rents creep higher and higher.

I rather enjoyed living in a fringe neighborhood and I sort of miss it. I used to to walk my dogs warning them off used condoms, empty poppers and the occasional syringe. I would chat with the trannie hookers flush with cash from Lincoln Tunnel commuters. They were fascinating and delightful and I loved learning about their last procedure and how many more tricks they needed to turn to pay for the next.

Today, my walk is a jungle of designer dogs and the very well-groomed competing cunningly for yellow cabs. (I know the trick of getting a cab--so just ask if you're having a problem.)

Today, no longer the gay Stonehenge of Hell's Kitchen, Riverbank West has grown much more tame, as have I. And Hell's Kitchen is now the new Chelsea but considerably more upscale and characterized by gourmet food, chic bars, restored warehouses and tenements and towering luxury in every direction. The waterfront has been completely restored with parks, fountains and various family-friendly amusements. Off-Broadway theaters have spread as far west as 11th Avenue, dragging tourists along with them. The diner that used to be packed with drag queens and trannie hookers has now been replaced with a Starbucks. And the queers are older and very well behaved. Sad. But as you can see from the photographs accompanying this post, I still know how to make my own fun. Disney and Giuliani may have finally reversed the long sordid history of HK but as long as I'm still here, mischief will endure. I don't go down easily...or do I?