In many senses, the meatpacking district is the most unlikely new grand dame of neighborhoods. In 1884, the area west of Greenwich Village was designated as an outdoor market called the Gansevoort Market, named after General Peter Gansevoort, hero of the Revolutionary War and grandfather of Herman Melville.

In 1949, it became The Gansevoort Meat Center and at its height, 250 slaughterhouses and packing plants produced the nation's third largest quantity of dressed meat. Until recently, butchers in white, blood-stained coats and truckers with attitudes owned the streets by day and transvestite hookers - enjoying the irony of turning tricks in the "meat" market - owned it by night. Well-heeled New Yorkers wouldn't have been caught dead in a neighborhood like that. But what eventually won them over - after the arrival of the boutiques, that is - is the area's ambiance, its rugged beauty, its hidden elegance. For the Meatpacking District is all low-slung buildings (zoning ordinances generally limit constructions to five stories), wide avenues paved in Belgian stone blocks, and charming 19th century brick architecture. To wit, one of the area's most popular new bars, 5 Ninth , is hidden behind the un-signposted, unfinished, heavy wooden door of an 1850s townhouse. Inside, the modern two-floor restaurant has a fireplace on each floor and a dramatic glass wall at the back that looks out onto a lush patio.

Florent, a 24- hour glorified diner, still packs in more transgenders and club goers at 4 a.m. than hipsters at 4 p.m. And some mornings you'll even catch a glimpse of a leftover transvestite straggling back home. Yet to that undeniably New York mayhem there has been added an undeniably New York veneer of chic, sexiness and cool. Interspersed between the grit is now a bit of glitter. Another New York fairytale for the ages.