This brief history of Chelsea was written by SNAP, a member of Chelsea.clickyourblock.com, and is reprinted with permission.
"I'm Chelsea born and bred (in the last century; wow - feels cool to say that!) and lived here all my life.
The real - as opposed to geo-political - borders of Chelsea have never been really well defined. The south side of 14th Street is definately the Village and the Hudson (North) River is definately the western border (DUH!). Rumor has always had it that there's something called "Jersey" beyond the Hudson that's there basically to keep Philly from encroaching on New York in general and Chelsea in particular.
The eastern border was generally defined by how far west one lived. For me (9th Avenue), it's always been 6th or 7th, for others 5th, though once you could see the Flatiron, you were absolutely at the border. Interesting history here: prior to the events of September 11, the greatest loss of life suffered by the FDNY was across Broadway from the Flatiron where, in October, 1966, 12 Firemen died in the line of duty at the Madison Square Fire. There's a brass plaque on the 23rd Street side of the high-rise, right at the east-bound 23rd Street crosstown bus stop marking the event. The credit for this plaque being placed there goes to a retired FD Chief who still lives here in Chelsea.
As for north, some took the border as 34th Street others as the Morgan Post Office on 9th Avenue (ie, north side of Chelsea Park). A lot of this particular point depended upon whether one used Clement Moore's farm or the Chelsea docks as the reference. Don't confuse the "Chelsea docks" with todays "Chelsea Piers." The Chelsea docks were a large part of the lifeblood of this neighborhood and, indeed, the city. I remember seeing hundreds of longshoremen walking west toward the docks early every morning, each carrying a bailing hook and heavy work gloves heading to the shape-up for the day's back-breaking work. This was in the days of block-and-tackle-and-muscle, before the cranes and containers killed the piers and the thousands of jobs that went with them. In those days the Chelsea docks were the busiest docks in the busiest port in the world.
Most of today's "townhouses" and $3,000/month walk-up studios were, back then, rooming houses (for today, read SRO) for Merchant Mariners on the beach for a few weeks before they'd get another berth and ship out again.
That's not to say that the longshoremen weren't here. They certainly were. Many of the "older" gentlemen who you see in the neighborhood are them themselves and deserve your respect for the work they did.
As for "North Chelsea," "Chelsea Heights" and any other appelations, these are the brain explosions of real estate brokers, developers and those wanting to bail out of their condos and co-ops with the extra money that a grand-sounding cachet might afford.
Chelsea Park was the home for the neighborhood teams (Little League, PAL, parishes) in softball, roller hockey, and touch football. They were sponsored by the many small banks, butchers, florists, markets, TV repair shops, shoe repair shops, stationery stores, pharmacies and other mom-and-pops which flourshed here and provided after-school jobs for the neighborhood and kept kids out of trouble. Oh, and of course both Whelan's and Western Union in London Terrace.
On Sunday mornings, the Sea Scouts would march up 10th Avenue from Guardian Angel led by Msgr. Renschlier (sorry if I got the spelling wrong, Monsignore). The Sea Scouts were another organization that kept the local kids involved and out of trouble and gave tribute to the maritime tradition upon which Chelsea thrived. Guardian Angel was the Shrine Church of the Sea and the home of the Chaplain of the Port of New York.
As for the Police Department, I'm not sure of the exact date, but probably in the '60's or early '70's, the City decided to redraw all the precinct boundray lines to conform (more or less) to the political and Community Board lines. Prior to that, the 10th Precinct borders ran from 5th Avenue to the river, 14th Street to 34th. Some folks defined Chelsea by that map. Above that, what is now Midtown South was known as the 14.
People need to know and understand that today's COOL Chelsea - Piers, galleries, clubs, swank restaurants, Starbucks, Gaps, condos, co-ops and other trendies - has a REAL history peopled by REAL lives and that if you're LIVING here instead of just staying here it needs to be appreciated to its fullest: the great, the good, not-so-good and bad."
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