Hell’s Kitchen: Downtown Irish America and Uptown Gentrification
Downtown Irish Catholic identity depicted on-screen normally showed motion pictures such as Martin Scorsese’s The Departed (2006) set in Boston’s Charlestown and others such as the (Phil Joanou), (Michael Lee Baron) film State of Grace (1990); with (Terry Noonan) undercover Boston cop transferred back to his old Irish precinct as played by (Sean Penn); in addition to (Jackie Flannery), a loose cannon Irish-American gangster played by (Gary Oldman). As Penn and Oldman perform the main roles set within a disappearing Irish-American enclave. Namely, Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan, New York City (Farrell, N/A). Moreover, State of Grace (1990), even bears a resemblance to the actual history of the Westies gang located in New York City’s Hell Kitchen, that conquered the Irish-American criminal underworld for years; while historically speaking, of course, Irish-American mobsters were also known to work alongside Italian American crime families throughout “The Big Apple”. For example, the film State of Grace (1990), even displays a traditional, sociological and religiously historical “Catholic” interplay, between Irish and Italian American crime families; which is mostly a result of gentrification entering a once working-class Catholic-dominated neighbourhood overshadowed by the Yuppie e.g., “young urban professional” (Alego, 1991, p.220). Or (WASP) “White Anglo-Saxon Protestant” (Zhang, 2015). In which both mobs Italian and Irish are somewhat forced to work together, even though the relationship turns sour now and then. While new housing estates, commercial areas and upscale brasseries move into a once protected Irish-American neighbourhood just West of Midtown Manhattan. By means of, 1990s neoliberalism as discovered under the Clinton administration is seen projecting metropolitan politics and urban renewal plans of the backstreets of both Italian and Irish American condemned-like buildings. Whereas the Irish-American community-dwelling in such an ethnic ghetto situation embodies the Irish working-class outsider, the Hibernian American pariah; thus, living beyond the pines of the American dream; as we see entrepreneurial (WASPs) and Wall Street capitalist yuppies then moving to hijack a once-thriving Catholic orientated universe equally Irish and Italian since the beginning of time. Thus, isolated and apartheid in nature (Frankie Flannery) the gang’s leader played by (Ed Harris); likewise accepts neoliberalism as true and then on moves to the suburban district of New Jersey; as there is no more Irish living in Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan, just neoliberal middle-class yuppies! hell-bent on dismantling the final remnants of working-class Irish America (Martynuska, 2015, p.5).
Afterwards, displaying that of a political, economic and cultural displacement Ayn Rand projects gentrification, while symbolising a nearly extinct “Manhattan” variety; specifically, a Roman Catholic or Five Points Irish, Manhattan kind. That lives beyond the neon lights and glamour of Times Square; while, evidently juxtaposed to modern-day capitalist globalization the movie even holds conflict to mafia-style violence, Irish family values, and the green-white-orange tricolour. Alongside, that of a Celtic “Roman Catholic Cross” tilting behind St. Patricks Cathedral, Manhattan; a Catholic landmark beholden to the Golden Jubilee of Pope Pius X (Remigius, 2014). Alongside Tuckahoe marble and a stained glass Liturgy touching the face Holy Fifth Avenue face of St. Patrick himself. While the final sequence even resonances with a moving Irish traditional image, in which redheaded Irish girls start: marching, dancing and twilling away behind a forgotten Irish land paying adornment to the Lee Lawrie Atlas Stature; thus replacing the Hibernian drums power of sounding an old Irish tune from an old Celtic and forgotten Ériu Christian world. This ongoing relationship between Irish-self-identity and inner-city capitalism without a doubt remains a Polaris or a somewhat “Ayn Rand” movie screen gesture to modern-day commercial New York, namely, soulless New York (Martynuska, 2015, p,6).
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Algeo, J. (1991). Fifty Years Among the New Words: A Dictionary of Neologisms. Cambridge University Press. p. 220.
Farrell, S. (N/A). The Irish-American Gangster in Film. Readkong. 1 (4), p.4.
Hang, M. (2015). “WASPs”. In Stone, John; et al. (eds.). The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Nationalism. Abstract. P. 304.
Martynuska, M. (2015). Hyphenated Identity of Irish-Americans in Gangster Film Genre. Journal of Foreign Languages, Cultures and Civilizations. 3 (5), p.5.
Movieclips Classic Trailers. (2012). State of Grace Official Trailer #1 — John Turturro Movie (1990) HD. Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN_L96iEQfQ. Last accessed Oct 5, 2012.
Remigius, Z. (1914). The Catholic Church in the United States of America: Undertaken to Celebrate the Golden Jubilee of His Holiness, Pope Pius X.V. The Catholic Editing Company.
