The final round of the Best of Gay City Readers’ Choice Contest is complete and the winners are in.
Boxers Bar in Hells Kitchen. | MARCELO RODIFERIO/ BOXERS NYC
HELL'S KITCHEN In the Readers’ Choice Awards’ final round of voting, up against sentimental favorites Chelsea and the West Village and an outer-borough well-heeled contender, Park Slope, Hell’s Kitchen prevailed. Emerging well over a decade ago as a major LGBT residential haunt, HK seemed at first like something of a Chelsea’s Chelsea — coming up so fast on the heels of that popular neighborhood just to the south. A nightlife and dining desert barely 20 years ago, the neighborhood is now full of bars, lounges, and restaurants that have crowds spilling out into the streets on fair-weather evenings.
As with any successful district in the city, there’s increasingly noise about redevelopment and soaring rents — and the imminent rise of Hudson Yards will undoubtedly have a profound effect on HK’s face of the future. For now, though — even as Harlem, Inwood, Long Island City, Williamsburg, and Bushwick draw growing legions of queer migrants — Hell’s Kitchen remains firmly rooted in the LGBT community’s mental map of New York.
Click on the categories below the image to find out the winners in other categories:
Alan Cumming in “Cabaret,” Andrew Rannells, and Bob the Drag Queen. | MICHAEL SHIREY
