DEP Press Advisory on Deer Hunting Cancellation, October 2, 2001

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

f up the Creek in the Bronx I- Fulton Fish Market Unhappy in Its New Home

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Phoiopraphs by Anpel Fronco/The New York Time?

Tony Cirillo, the president of Local 359 of the United Food and Commercial Workers, the union local that represents tht fish ma^et workers, said: “The New York Stock Exchange is back open for business, lor pete's sake. How about us^"

for the neighborhood around the South while avoiding the customers and By CHARLIE LeDUFF Street Seaport, the merchants said. workmen pushing handcarts. The The thing about fish is that it’s got to The market is currently at 600 Food merchandise is piled so haphazardly Center Drive in the Hunts Point Market that the salesmen find it difficult to be sold today. This is both a natural and site, the Bronx. It is sandwiched between remember what fish they have in an economic law. the meat cooperative and the littered ^ock. This universal truth is being pleaded banks of the Bronx River. It leans like a The 59 wholesale operators find by fishmongers at the Fulton Fish Mar­ shantytown against the old Hebrew Na­ themselves working in the elements, ket, who, because of the World Trade tional Foods warehouse. The names of without computers or cash registers, Center attack, are no longer mongering the fish purveyors are spray-painted on with nothing to shield them from the the building. Just across an access road rain and wind. The sleet of Decem­ fish from their open-air stalls in southern is a polluted brownfield and a dumping ber is on everyone’s mind. Manhattan, but rather from a desolate ground for batteries, house paints and Since the move to the Bronx, mer­ and filthy parking lot in the South Bronx. other toxic materials. chants estimate that volume is down The market, it seems, created traffic “It’s a horror story,” said Joe Cen- 40 to 50 percent. The market normal­ problems. So its relocation went into trone, a cantankerous cigar-stained ly moves 100,000 boxes of produce a effect Sept. 15 on the order of Mayor salesman for Arrow Seafood, who is week, which translates into a $1 bil­ Rudolph W. Giuliani. known around the market as Joe Tuna. lion aimual industry for New York “When the semis and forklifts are op­ “We’re getting slaughtered. None of the City. But many say that business is customers can find us up here, and even TOW so poor that they don’t think erating and fish is being sold outdoors, if they could, this ain’t the nicest neigh­ they can last another month in the South Street is shut down,’’ said Janel borhood in New York.” current situation. Patterson, a spokeswoman for the city’s To make matters worse, the square Economic Development Corporation. footage of the temporary market is one- “We need that street for the relief ef­ third the space of the Fultojj^Fi^ Mar­ fort.’’ The move has brought impending ket. The 1,200 forklifts, trucks and bankruptcies, layoffs of workers, worries vans must jockey for available space of a spoiled seafood supply and struggles among the narrow aisles and roads

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