Poor N.Y. Neighborhood Feeds Region, But Has No Supermarket

Poor N.Y. Neighborhood Feeds Region, But Has No Supermarket

Hunts Point, an isolated and poor neighborhood in New York City’s borough of The Bronx, hosts the largest marketplace for fresh produce, meat, and fish in the northeastern United States. Huge trucks come and go at all hours of the day and night, carrying food to supermarket chains and the region’s finest restaurants.

RELATED: America’s Worst 9 Urban Food Deserts

But after a fire gutted the neighborhood’s only supermarket, Hunts Point’s residents — mostly Black and Latino — have no place to buy quality groceries.

The New York Daily News reports:

“Everybody in Hunts Point goes shopping there — all the seniors,” said area resident J.C. Creer, 73, a retired trucker. “They have quality food and fresh food there. We rely on that store.”

The industrial section of Hunts Point is home to a sprawling food distribution center that includes wholesale produce, fish and meat markets, but the residential section of the neighborhood is a so-called food desert, with few stores selling fresh fruit and vegetables.

Hunts Point Ave. is lined with bodegas and convenience stores, but now the nearest supermarket is located across busy Bruckner Blvd. in Longwood, at the corner of Southern Blvd. and E. 163rd St.

See NewsOne’s exclusive story on American “food deserts” here.

Read more in the New York Daily News

Poor N.Y. Neighborhood Feeds Region, But Has No Supermarket
News One
Sun, 22 Jan 2012 15:07:18 GMT