The last of the Meatpacking District holdouts

Gansevoort Market in late 2024

The last of the original meat and butchering plants in NYC’s Meatpacking District have accepted a deal to sell the land back to the city for redevelopment.

While I didn’t grow up in the Meatpacking District, the area holds a special place in my heart not too long before it became the upscale shopping and entertainment district it is known for today. When I was younger, I would often walk with my camera to this area of the Meatpacking District to make friends with some of the un-housed people calling the area home. Back in the 2000s, the Meatpacking wasn’t quite as dangerous as I had read about in decades past and it also wasn’t developed much until the boom that came with the High Line Park in 2009. During this period, I would walk around, talk to strangers, occasionally walk the abandoned rail line (High Line), and photograph the “grittiness” of the neighborhood. It was quiet then, nobody around to bother you, and honestly kind of nice.

Gansevoort Market in 2024

Soon, the last remnants of what I remember of this area from my own childhood will be gone, and the remainder of the memories of an even older Meatpacking District for some others will only live in the heads of past generations.

If you’ve followed any developments in the Meatpacking District in the last decade, you’ll know that this was a long time coming. Gansevoort Market stood at the epicenter of a grand revival for the Meatpacking, with Little Island on one side and The Standard Hotel and upscale shopping on the other side. It is, in my opinion, an unofficial extension of the West Village and in some ways, even looks it from the streets.

At this time, there isn’t a move-out date for these businesses at the Gansevoort Market, but now that the deal is done, you can be sure that they’ll slowly move out rather than wait for the final hammer to drop.