While on the train I heard a phrase straight out of my childhood. Referring to the considerable herds of cattle we were seeing outside our windows, the conductor remarked that most of them just "wander all over hell's half acre." I have been unable to track down the source meaning of that phrase. Anyone know?

WordNet says Hell's Half Acre is "a district in Manhattan formerly noted for its slums and vice," also known as Hell's Kitchen.

"Originally the expression 'Hell's Kitchen' referred to a rough neighborhood in South London." (Wikipedia)

This site gives the history of Hell's Kitchen in New York. It doesn't give the date when it first acquired the name, though it says there were over 350,00 people in Hell's Kitchen by the start of the Civil War, and that the name first appeared in print to refer to the New York area on September 22, 1881.

Hell's half-acre began to be applied to any seedy district, especially red-light (prostitution) districts. This site talks about Hell's half-acre in Ft. Worth, Texas (Ft. Worth begun as a military camp in 1849). The term was extended to mean "a low dive."

All over Hell's half acre, meaning "everywhere," is apparently from something (book, short story, magazine?) titled Last Rustler, published in 1930.

That last bit of information is from ESC on The Phrase Finder forum (August 24, 2003), who cites as his source the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang, Volume 2, H-O, by J.E. Lighter, Random House, New York, 1997.

Tinman

This message has been edited. Last edited by: tinman,

Interesting. The dates almost seem to indicate that it began in Texas or Tennessee, rather than NY. Does anyone know when it was used to refer to the "rough neighborhood in South London? Is it still used in England?

Hell's half acre is not a phrase used over here. Hell's kitchen is/was the area around Brick Lane in East London (not South London). The phrase has come back recently because of a TV series of that name starring celeb chef Gordon Ramsay.