Build the Hunts Point ramps in the South Bronx
Trucks have long choked the South Bronx because they lack direct access to its massive food hub, but a solution is finally at hand
By Daniel Kane, president of Teamsters 202, and Marcos Crespo, D-Bronx
The need to preserve and grow quality blue-collar jobs in our city, and to support the healthy development of the neighborhoods where these workers live, has never been more pressing. This mission was embraced in 1967 when the vision to create a regional food-distribution hub on a peninsula in the South Bronx on public land took shape, and it has paid off tremendously. Today, the Hunts Point Food Distribution Center is an essential engine of the regional economy and an anchor of the food supply.
Not only do 60% of New York City’s fresh fruits and vegetables come through Hunts Point’s produce market, but through operations that include the meat and fish markets and surrounding businesses, the distribution center touches the food supply of more than 22 million people. The scale of these operations, which take place on land larger than 400 football fields, is integral to the regional economy and local jobs. The distribution center alone is home to 15,000 jobs, many of them paying union and living wage, and $5 billion dollars in annual economic activity, not counting the jobs and economic activity generated by the goods at their final destination.