Meatpacking District: How the Industrial Outskirts Have Become a Manhattan Fashion District

Once upon a time, warehouses, carpentry workshops and butcher shops stood in rows in the area. Today, there are trendy gourmet shops and gourmet restaurants in Mypacking District. About how the usual outskirts of Manhattan turned into a fashionable district in just one decade, the video says "Voice of America".

The mitpacking district is an area adjacent to the Hudson River in lower Manhattan. Relatively small by New York standards, it contains only a few city blocks.

Its current name has been stuck with it since the XNUMXth century. Here, in the old days, they were engaged in cutting and selling meat. It also housed paint and carpentry workshops, and for some time even produced cigars and cosmetics.

One of the area’s main streets is Washington Street. On the one hand, fashion boutiques were densely packed on it, and on the other hand, butcher shops. The latter are now much smaller than 100 years ago, but those that remain continue to work. There were fewer butcher shops around 1960-1970, when new technologies for the development and storage of meat appeared. In those years, the Mitpacking District began to empty and decline.

The situation changed with the heyday of club life - then the area noticeably revived. This happened in the 1980s. Parties were organized from the empty warehouses of the Mitpacking District. The area itself has become a mecca of New York nightlife. In the 1990s, this fame was entrenched in the area. Famous DJs who came to the city at that time preferred to have their parties here.

The next round in the development of the region occurred in the late 1990s. Then Mitpacking district reoriented to the elite youth of Manhattan. Boutiques of such famous designers as Christian Louboutin, Alexander McQueen, Stella McCartney, as well as prestigious restaurants appeared here.

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In 2009, the Standard High Line boutique hotel appeared in the area, which became one of the symbols of the Packing District. Many celebrities like to visit the restaurant located in this hotel, which offers stunning views of the surroundings.

The hotel building rises above another attraction of the area - the overhead High Line park. This park is yet another testament to how New York turns its industrial past into high-tech. The once abandoned railway line is today a popular promenade with a length of more than two kilometers.

Further evidence that the area was once industrial is the massive canopies over the entrances to the buildings. “They decided not to remove them. Now it is, one might say, the corporate identity of the region, ”the video says.

By the way, famous Hollywood directors love to make films in the Meatpacking District. Filming is carried out most often in the summer, when restaurants and cafes place their tables in the open air, transforming the appearance of the area.

There is also a cobbled street, which adds color to the already unusual area. Famous American glossy magazines love to arrange photo shoots for their models.

In 2015, the Whitney Museum of American Art settled in Meatpacking District. It presents all the artistic directions of American art of the 400th and XNUMXth centuries: painting, sculpture, graphics, installations and much more. Every two years, it hosts biennials, at which the best achievements of contemporary art are presented to the public. The construction of the museum took five years and cost $ XNUMX million. But now it has become a real gem of the area, attracting tourists, which made the Meatpacking District a real hit in New York.