<<...OLE_Obj...>> February 15, 2001 City Proceeds With Moving Fulton
Fish Market to Bronx By THOMAS J. LUECK <<...OLE_Obj...>> Mayor Rudolph W.
Giuliani said yesterday that the city would proceed this year with a
long-planned relocation of the 167-year-old Fulton Fish Market to the Bronx,
saying that the proposed new $81 million fish distribution center in Hunts
Point would benefit the city's fish merchants. Mr. Giuliani, who mentioned
his plan during his annual address to the City Council on the state of the
city in January, said yesterday that an environmental impact study, final
design work and competitive bidding among builders could all be completed
within months, with groundbreaking for the new market scheduled for this
summer. If so, the project could be completed by the end of 2002, according
to the mayor's staff. "The fish merchants will get a new, safe and efficient
facility that will provide space to grow and expand," the mayor said at a
City Hall news conference, where he was joined by the Bronx borough
president, Fernando Ferrer. The plan comes after an aggressive campaign by
the mayor to rid the Fulton Fish Market of organized crime, which resulted
during the mid-1990's in a system of licensing and worker integrity checks
that forced more than a dozen companies out of business. But several
officials said yesterday that the main rationale for a new distribution
center was recent federal health regulations that prohibit selling fresh
fish outdoors and require that it be refrigerated at the point of sale.
Fishmongers at the Fulton Fish Market continue a long tradition of selling
from open air stalls, where fish is kept on ice. Another benefit of moving
the market to Hunts Point is that it would free up the city-owned site of
the Fulton Fish Market, which could command a huge price from developers
because of its location on the East River just north of the South Street
Seaport. Mr. Giuliani said yesterday that no plans had been made for the
sale or development of the site. The site of the new fish distribution
building would be on 30 acres of vacant land just south of the Hunts Point
Food Distribution Center, a long established wholesale market for fresh
produce and meat. Although plans to move to Hunts Point have provoked some
opposition among wholesale fish companies now operating at the Fulton Fish
Market and merchants and restaurateurs who buy their fish there, Mr. Ferrer
said the planned move may face bigger obstacles from environmental and
neighborhood groups in the Bronx. Residents of a small residential enclave
neighboring the Hunts Point Food Distribution Center have long complained of
truck traffic and pollution, and raised questions about the the mayor's plan
yesterday. "We've been working to protect our residents from killer trucks,"
said Francisco Perez, a member of Mothers on the Move, a group that he said
was formed in 1998 after a 6- year-old girl was killed after being struck by
a truck in Hunts Point. He said the plan to route more trucks into the area
for fish deliveries would only increase the danger. Majora Carter, associate
director of the Point Community Development Corporation, a group of South
Bronx residents, said it had been urging the city to consider other plans
for the Hunts Point site that would include housing and open space. "This is
a low-income community of color that has already taken on a disproportionate
burden in things like rampant truck traffic," she said. At City Hall, Mr.
Giuliani said the city had committed $5 million to improve rail freight
service to the Hunts Point site, which would provide a more efficient rail
link to the nearby Harlem River Rail Yard and lessen the need for more
trucks routed into the new center. He also pointed to a plan by the state to
construct a highway interchange and road connecting the site to the Bruckner
Expressway, which lies less than a mile to the north. Michael R. Fleischer,
a spokesman for the state's Department of Transportation, said his
department had obtained $9 million this year in federal funds to study the
Hunts Point road improvements, which could ultimately cost $200 million. He
said the department had "planned for this project even before hearing that
the fish market would move," but that funds would not be sought for
construction until a five- year spending plan that begins in 2005. The news
conference was Mr. Ferrer's first public City Hall appearance with the mayor
in years, and the presence of both officials appeared to underscore the
political muscle being mustered behind the Hunts Point project. Whether the
mayor's plan will provoke opposition from among the 60 wholesale fish
companies that operate in the Fulton Fish Market was unclear yesterday,
although Mr. Giuliani said at his news conference that "80 percent, maybe 90
percent of the companies support it" because of the more modern equipment
and storage space the Hunts Point project would provide. Herbert Slavin,
chairman of M. Slavin & Sons, the largest wholesale distributor at the
Fulton Fish Market, said yesterday that the mayor's plan was overdue. "On a
scale of 1 to 10, conditions down here are zero," he said. "We are working
on the street in the rain and snow, we get sea gull droppings on our fish,
and I think the mayor's plan is wonderful." <<...OLE_Obj...>>
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Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company </subscribe/help/copyright.html>
Jerry Mulnick
Senior Regional Shellfish Specialist
FDA/Northeast Region/State Programs Branch
158-15 Liberty Avenue
Jamaica, NY 11433-1034
Ph: 718/662-5613
FAX: 718/662-5434
Email: jmulnick@ora.fda.gov
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