When first settled, Chelsea, the area on the west side of Manhattan between 14th and 30th Streets and 7th to 11th Avenues, was a bucolic, hilly farmland, rife with apple orchards and fields. In the last decade it has been besieged by developers with projects ranging from miraculous(the HL 23 building on the High Line) to downright tawdry (too many to mention).
Now in the northern part of this neighborhood, which is part industrial and part residential, there is a huge hoopla over the opening of a 328-bed homeless shelter on 26th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues. The shelter would house, among others, drug addicts and the marginally
mentally ill, throwing the moms and some of the high end owners into a frenzy that has kept the shelter from opening 3 times, despite the fact that the courts are on their side.
From a real estate point of view, I believe the effects of this shelter will be short term. New Yorkers have lived with methadone clinics and AIDS hospices from the Upper East Side to the Meatpacking District for decades, the rich and poor side by side with few if any incidents. In fact, while this frenzy over the shelter continues, I would rate this a great time to get a decent if not amazing deal in those transitioning streets between 6th and 8th in the 20s. Hurry - the shelter will soon be absorbed into the maelstrom of New York, with many of those now protesting becoming volunteers or advocates. People forget that an alternative to a homeless shelter is these people living on the streets - or in your doorway.
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