Photo by Mike Lee
The catch of the day waits for a customer.
On Nov. 14, 2005, the day the Fulton Fish market moved from lower Manhattan to Hunts Point, Mayor Michael Bloomberg declared, “The move to the Bronx brings a billion-dollar industry and roughly 600 jobs to the Hunts Point peninsula, further establishing Hunts Point as the leading food distribution center in the country.”
But local stores and restaurants that had hoped for new customers have been disappointed by a market that is entirely self-contained.
And community leaders and ordinary residents who had hoped jobs would come their way say few have. Firms in the market brought their workers with them.
That will change, said George Maroulis, the market’s manager. Firms in the market want to hire people from the neighborhood, he said. It’s more efficient to employ people who live nearby.
Maroulis counseled patience, saying that as current workers leave, the plan is to fill their jobs with local residents.
However, he cautioned, an obstacle to employing local people is their lack of skills. Nearly a third of local residents don’t speak English well and more than half have not completed high school, according to the Hunts Point Vision Plan, which calls those the “basic skills” necessary to be employed. The Vision Plan also cites the need for training in job-specific tasks.
Maroulis said job training programs are being developed. “I hope the community realizes we are really in partnership and not at odds with the community in any way,” he said.
The market has also brought still more truck traffic to Hunts Point, 5,500 more trucks a day, according to a study commissioned by the Bronx Borough President’s office and The Point Community Development Corporation.
The 2004 study called for more use of boats to deliver fish. More recently, Community
Board 2 has asked for better road access to the market.
In its budget wishlist for the 2009 Fiscal Year, the board cited the fish market in calling for better bus service to the Hunts Point peninsula and for rehabilitating Bruckner Boulevard from East 149th Street to Edgewater Road.
Board 2 also asked for more attractive fencing along the entire Hunt’s Point Food Distribution Center and improved and increased signs directing traffic to the food markets.