Health in Urban Communities – Chelsea, Manhattan

Chelsea as a Neighborhood: Modern Day Chelsea: * has a population of 38 thousand people * The neighborhood is primarily residential, with a mix of apartment blocks, city housing projects, townhouses, and renovated row houses , but its many retail businesses reflect the ethnic and social diversity of the population. * The area has a large LGBTQ population. * home to over 200 art galleries * As of 2015, due to the area’s gentrification, there is a widening income gap between the wealthy living in luxury buildings and the poor living in housing projects, who are across the street from each other. * spans roughly from west 14th street to 34th street and 12th avenue to 6th avenue History of Chelsea * By the time of the Civil War, the area west of Ninth Avenue and below 20th Street was the location of numerous distilleries making turpentine and camphene, a lamp fuel. In addition, the huge Manhattan Gas Works complex, which converted bituminous coal into gas, was located at Ninth and 18th Street.

* The industrialization of western Chelsea brought immigrant populations from many countries to work in the factories,[14] including a large number of Irish immigrants, who dominated work on the Hudson River piers that lined the nearby waterfront * Other major housing complexes in the Chelsea area are Penn South, a 1962 cooperative housing development sponsored by the International Ladies Garment Workers’ Union, and the New York City Housing Authority-built and -operated Fulton Houses and Chelsea-Elliot Houses. Culture of Chelsea: * People of many different cultures live in Chelsea. Chelsea is famous for having a large LGBTQ population, with one of Chelsea’s census tracts reporting that 22% of its residents were gay couples * In 2015, the average yearly household income in most of Chelsea was about $140,000. * On the other hand, in the area’s two public-housing developments – the Chelsea Elliot Houses and Fulton Houses– the average income was less than $30,000 * This resulted in large income disparities across the neighborhood; one block in particular – 25th Street between 9th and 10th Avenues – had the Elliot Houses on its north side and two million-dollar residences on its south side. * The neighborhood now ranks among those in the city with the greatest income inequality * as of 2015 chelsea is 60% white, 18% hispanic, 14% asian, 6% black, 2% other * chelsea has the 5th highest rate of tobacco retailers in the city * on average drug and alcohol related hospitalizations in chelsea are higher than the rest of the city * the average rate of mental health related hospitalizations in chelsea is much higher than the rest of the city * heart disease and cancer are the leading causes of death in chelsea