Just as the island of Manhattan seems to change every day, each neighborhood within Manhattan is constantly reinventing and redefining its identity. Yesterday’s Alphabet City is today’s Lower East Side, and Washington Square Park is filled with jazz musicians. In this first decade of the 21st century, the Chelsea neighborhood seems intent on defining itself as an area where expression runs rampant. You can see it everywhere in Chelsea, from the spontaneous street art on 22nd, to exhibitions of new artists at the Agora Gallery, to the newly repurposed High Line Park. Here, artistic expression is by the people and for the people. In Chelsea, culture makes its way from the ground up -- the masses dictating to the elite. The new face of Chelsea pays respect to an old soul.

Buildings and structures have been repurposed and renovated, rather than torn down and rebuilt. On the same streets where goods were once imported from around the world by the shipping industry, modern New Yorkers can interact with their own history, along with the most exciting artistic movements from across the globe.

The Galleries

No other New York neighborhood can be compared to Chelsea’s commitment to contemporary art. Nearly 300 galleries packed into the west side between 14th and 25th street offer visitors exhibitions in all manner of artistic expression. The diversity is truly astounding. In the grand tradition of NYC neighborhoods as “districts” Chelsea offers art, art, and yet more art.

A few of the highlights include: Located on 25th street between 10th and 11th Avenues, Agora Gallery http://www.agora-gallery.com/ primarily exhibits new and emerging international artists with a commitment to sustainability. Each year, Agora hosts the Chelsea International Fine Art Competition, in order to further realize its goal of “carving a space for new talent,” as described by gallery director Angela Di Bello. This year, gallery exhibitions will include artists from Latin America, Canada, Europe, and all corners of the globe. With two locations in Chelsea, on 22nd street and 25th street, Pace Wildenstein http://www.pacewildenstein.com/ is home to collections from many of the most influential artists of the 20th century. Pace first opened its doors on Newbury Street in Boston, and now occupies three locations in Manhattan. They exhibit new work from many artists along with numerous scholarly exhibitions including the sketchbooks of Picasso and the earthly forms of Arp, Calder, and Noguchi. Over the years, Pace Wildenstein has mounted over 500 exhibitions with work from more than 200 artists. The Mary Boone Gallery http://www.maryboonegallery.com/ on 25th street is the newest of the gallery’s four locations.

Mary Boone has always been committed to showing the work of innovative young artists. However, the opening of their Chelsea location in 2000 offered them the opportunity to mount more large-scale, dramatic exhibits, including Peter Halley's explosive hanging of paintings and wallpaper and Marc Quinn's complete series of carved marble statues of persons with missing limbs.

Chelsea Art Museum http://www.chelseaartmuseum.org/

As home to the Miotte Foundation, the Chelsea Art Museum dedicates itself to Jean Miotte’s ideal of art as international language in every exhibition it shows. The Museum, which mounts rotating exhibitions of Miotte’s work on a regular basis, also shows work from 20th and 21st century artists who have previously been less exhibited in the United States than their own countries. The art exhibited at the Chelsea Art Museum reflects a broader interpretation of the human experience, both in terms of geography and lifestyle.

The renovated 30,000 square foot building where the CAM makes its home was once a halfway house for longshoremen. What a perfect representation of the new face of Chelsea: an area that historically served as a warehouse district for the international shipping trade now offers a personal interaction with the contemporary international art scene to New Yorkers. Visitors to the Chelsea Art Museum should expect to be challenged, engaged, and enlightened. This is not your grandmother’s art museum.

Chelsea Piers http://www.chelseapiers.com/

Directly across the street from the Chelsea Art Museum lies perhaps one of the most innovative renovation projects in all of New York City.

Who would have thought that NYCers could find a driving range or soccer field right here on the island of Manhattan? The 28 acre Chelsea Piers Sports and Entertainment Complex offers a full service golf club, television studio, health club, and so much more. Located between 17th and 23rd Streets along the Hudson River side of the island, Chelsea Piers is committed to being the best amateur sports and entertainment facility in the country. However, a quarter-century ago, the Chelsea Piers were nothing more than a run-down eyesore, a physical representation of the decline of the Chelsea area after the shipping industry moved away. In 1992, after the failure of a plan to demolish the piers and build a highway, a group of private investors came up with a plan that would lay the groundwork for Chelsea’s return to glory.

The facilities at Chelsea Piers are state of the art, offering New Yorkers opportunities for healthy recreation that had been previously reserved for suburbanites. Perhaps the most exciting programs at Chelsea Piers are directed towards NYC youth, who participate in a number of sports and camp programs at the piers.

The High Line http://www.highline.org/

The High Line has a long history in the cultural renovation of Chelsea. In the 1930s, the highline was built as part of a massive infrastructure improvement act called the West Side Improvement. Dangerous freight trains were lifted 30 feet in the air in order to make the streets safer in the highly industrial neighborhood.

In 1999, Friends of the High Line banded together to repurpose the structure, which had stood stagnant since 1980, as a public park. The first phase, stretching from Gansevoort to 20th Street opened in June of 2009. The park, designed by James Corner Field Operations and Diller Scofidio + Renfro with the benefit of much community input, boasts meandering concrete paths along with a self-seeded landscape. The final section of the park, which runs from 20th to 30th Streets, is slated to open in 2010. Of course, anyone who wants to make it in Chelsea must be committed to the arts — even a public park.

Therefore, the High Line incorporates the presentation of contemporary art in and around the park. The first presentation of work, by artist Spencer Finch, pays homage to the area’s history even before the industrial shipyards of the 1930s. Finch’s The River That Flows Both Ways is inspired by the Native American name for the Hudson. Full-scale glass panes depict the water conditions of the Hudson River over a 24-hour period. In a time when the word gentrification threatens to leave a bitter taste in all of our mouths, we New Yorkers can look to Chelsea for a positive example of truly repurposing a neighborhood in jeopardy. Historic buildings and structures have been rejuvenated for the betterment of us all. New Yorkers from every walk of life venture to Chelsea for healthy recreation, outdoor communion, and of course, free interaction with artistic expression from our own backyard — which in New York extends to the farthest reaches of the globe.