FreshDirect could deliver jobs to Mott Haven, but residents try to slam a South Bronx door in the grocer’s face with hopes of an improved neighborhood
FreshDirect’s fleet of delivery trucks would not be out of place in Mott Haven, a South Bronx community located just one subway stop outside Manhattan. Easy access to major thoroughfares draws a number of truck-intensive businesses to the neighborhood. Moving vans and delivery trucks clamor up and down Bruckner Boulevard, connecting them up to Yonkers and the Bronx or south to Queens.
The online grocer’s delivery trucks would fit nicely in between the FedEx and New York Post trucks parked along the Harlem River. But some residents would like to see Mott Haven continue transforming into a residential area, so that FreshDirect’s new facility and truck fleet would eventually stick out like an eyesore.
With the help of more than $100 million in subsidies from the state of New York, FreshDirect plans to relocate its operations from Queens — where the expanding company has outgrown its current building — to Mott Haven this year. The CEO of the online grocery delivery service has pledged to bring 1,000 new jobs to the area over the next decade. Yet, a strong group of community activists called South Bronx Unite fiercely opposes the move.
The protest, whether or not it is successful, represents a change in Mott Haven’s pollution filled air. Unemployment, poverty and asthma rates remain high, but some residents are dedicated to staying here and improving their neighborhood. To this group, keeping another trucking company out of Mott Haven is worth the cost of possibly missing out on 1,000 new jobs over the next decade.
“It’s like a double standard. Things that are not accepted in other boroughs, they get dumped here,” said Libertad Guerra, a Mott Haven resident and member of South Bronx Unite.
The South Bronx is home to numerous delivery and moving companies, as well as a Waste Management treatment plant. But Guerra, an artist and anthropology professor at the City University of New York, does not want to see an increase in truck traffic in her neighborhood. She and her husband Monxo Lopez bought an apartment building in Mott Haven four years ago planning to raise a family here. Guerra wants to end what she perceives is a double standard that has come to exist in the South Bronx.
The fight against potential new jobs, however, is a point of contention between South Bronx Unite and community groups welcoming the job-creating grocer with open arms.