“If you had said twenty years ago, ‘you know the meatpacking district is going to be a cultural hub,'” Council Speaker Christine Quinn said in a short documentary on the neighborhood, “People would have looked at you like you were in some sort of beef-induced overdose haze and you had lost your mind.”
Teaming up with the Meatpacking Improvement Association (MIPA), Andre Balasz of the Standard captures the transformation of the neighborhood from being a gritty hub of meatpacking factories to the hub of high-end hotels, retail stores, and night clubs that it is today, Curbed noticed.
The seven-minute video features several neighborhood residents that were quintessential in shaping the history, including Florent owner, Florent Morrelet, the Meilman family, and David Rabin of Double Seven.
Hogs and Heifers’ owner, Michelle Dell, also contributed, noting that she’ll “never forget when the neighborhood started to transition. When the women started rolling around in their Jimmy Choo and their Guccis in this kind of slipping and sliding in the streets that were covered in this sort of thin film of meat sludge.”
mewing@observer.com
