The Hunts Point Terminal Market is the oldest of the three markets in the food distribution center—and it shows.
The co-op has outgrown its four warehouses, and technology has outstripped the market’s systems. It needs cold storage and room for today’s bigger trailers.
So the co-op plans a major renovation, variously estimated to cost from $450-$750 million. It calls for two new buildings that would use renewable energy sources and reduce air pollution by as much as 80 percent.
After the co-op threatened to move to New Jersey, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and state and local elected officials said they’d help find the funds for it to remain in the Bronx.
As it plans its renovation, the market remains a traditional place in which ownership, and jobs, are handed down from father to son. Here is a portrait of three of its 50 businesses, and the people who run them.