Before the area swelled with galleries and high-end residences, it was an artery supplying the heart of New York with warehouses and manufacturers. By the 1840s it had been established as a mixture of working-class residences and industrial complexes.¹ To serve the factories, freight lines were required, running up and down Tenth and Eleventh avenue. The legacy of these tracks forever shaped Chelsea’s development. Naturally, the one-block long trains running by pedestrians were a massive safety hazard. Horseback riders, called the West Side Cowboys, were required to warn pedestrians of oncoming trains.² The 1929 West Side Improvement Project finally moved the rail above street level, laying the tracks for the High Line we know today.
The Evolution of the Chelsea Arts District
That Eittem’s production studio and suite are in the Chelsea Arts District is no accident. Crafting our bags in a neighborhood with a deep relationship to the arts grounds us in a heritage of creativity. We are fortunate to be nestled in an area that offers a rich history, a continuous source of our inspiration.
For decades, this neighborhood has been the subject of spectacular change. A walk-through of today’s streets only reveals fragments of Chelsea’s industrial past. It is difficult to imagine, for instance, that what was once an industrial warehouse now houses some of the most sought-after art in the world. Or that the High Line, well-trodden by tourists and city residents on their lunch breaks, was once an abandoned railroad overtaken by nature.
Chelsea’s current iteration as an art world hub is largely a result of another neighborhood’s steady decline. If you have ever spent a day shopping in SoHo, you have walked the empty halls of what was once the center of New York’s gallery scene. Like Chelsea, SoHo had a less than glamorous past. Fire-prone factories and sweatshops in the years following WWII earned it the nickname, “Hell’s Hundred Acres.”³ But where there are empty, raw spaces, artists are like moths to a flame. In the sixties and seventies, artists built their lives in these buildings abandoned by the textile manufacturing industry.
And when the artists flocked, the galleries followed. For a few decades SoHo thrived as an artist's enclave and provided a throne for its patrons. It was only when the big retail stores began opening, seizing the advantages of the neighborhood’s bustling, artistic hum, that the galleries could no longer afford to stay. So, where to go next? An untapped neighborhood reminiscent of SoHo’s early days, where sparse subway lines offered protection against the retail dilemma.
No one knows the changing face of the New York art scene better than Kathryn Markel, a gallerist who has been in the business since 1976. She recalls her beloved industry’s evolutions with ease and wisdom. A firsthand witness to the Chelsea craze, she remembers how the cheap garages that could be purchased here were “very conducive to a gallery.” Once the “big fish” galleries, as she calls them, migrated in the 1990s, many others packed up their boxes in SoHo and traveled to the art world’s latest frontier.
Buying these spaces back then was as much of a “real estate play” as it was an “art play,” Kathryn points out — and it has paid to see the value in an unfinished, rough-around-the-edges jewel. The galleries who were Chelsea’s early supporters are now fortunate to remain immune to rising rent prices, a major advantage in the competitive landscape of New York real estate. Still, the art world continues to play musical chairs with its neighborhood of choice. Tribeca’s unusually cheap rents during the pandemic caused an influx of galleries to move away from Chelsea. But, as Kathryn has noticed, overgrowth in Tribeca has caused many galleries to return to Chelsea. She herself has just opened a second space in Chelsea, strengthening her already deep neighborhood roots.
"It is difficult to imagine, for instance, that what was once an industrial warehouse now houses some of the most sought-after art in the world.”
Kathryn’s first gallery has remained in the same building for over two decades. She suspects that the building was once used for document storage, as were many others in Chelsea before the computer age. Her gallery has certainly withstood the test of time, but time has not passed without its challenges. When she moved to Chelsea in 2001, the first few months were marked by tragedy. Her big plans to open on September 14th, 2001, were cast aside when the world turned over. In the aftermath of widescale, unthinkable tragedy, she feared that no one would ever want to buy art again.
“Why would you buy art when three thousand people have died?" She questioned. People were afraid of the subway, the air.
“But it didn't last very long. The art world bounced back very fast.” Choosing resilience, she opened a few weeks after she had initially planned. The industry’s strength in the aftermath of devastation offered a lesson in its ability to offer hope and vibrancy in dark times.
Today, the Chelsea Arts District continues to provide an escape from the toils of daily life. Stumble into a gallery on a sunny day and discover a new favorite artist. Stroll the High Line and marvel at the wild grasses, the modern architecture. Admire how the city can hold both the old and new.
