Chelsea

Historic area of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, immediately north of the Thames where it is crossed by the Albert and Chelsea bridges.

Chelsea

City in Suffolk County, northeastern Massachusetts, USA, on upper Boston Harbour between the Mystic River and Chelsea Creek, 5 km/3 mi north of Boston; population (1998 est) 27,500. Connected by bridges to Charlestown and East Boston, it provides storage yards for oil and coal tankers. Chelsea is also a commercial centre, including railyards, produce terminals, and shopping malls.

Chelsea has been settled since 1624 but was damaged by major fires in 1908 and 1973. Industries in the region previously included textiles, shoes, clocks, chemicals, and building supplies. In the 1990s Chelsea was severely depressed, and the possibility of annexation by Boston had been raised. A large naval hospital is on the Mystic River. The district surrounding the naval hospital, as well as two others in Chelsea, are included on the national register of historic places.

Chelsea

Residential and commercial section of the West Side of Manhattan, New York City, USA, from 14th Street to about 30th Street.

It has had several distinct characters since it developed in the area of a 1750s village. In the 1840s railroads and Irish immigration made it an industrial area. In the 1880s it was a theatre district. Early movies were made c.1910 in old theatre buildings, and the neighbourhood became noted as bohemian, a character it retains to some extent today. The Chelsea Hotel, built 1884 on 23rd Street, is noted as a home to artists and writers. General Theological Seminary's campus is in Chelsea, and the novelist Edith Wharton was born here in 1862.