From the wikipedia entry, which I am too addled to link:
"Hell's Kitchen, also known as Clinton and Midtown West, is a neighborhood of Manhattan that includes roughly the area between 34th Street and 57th Street, from 8th Avenue to the Hudson River.
The neighborhood provides transportation, hospital and warehouse infrastructure support to the Midtown Manhattan business district. Its gritty reputation had depressed real estate prices relative to much of the rest of Manhattan until the early 1990s."