Little Pittsburgh (Hunts Point, Bronx)
Entry in progress—B.P.
Another New York City “Little Pittsburgh” is East New York, Brooklyn.
Wikipedia: Hunts Point, Bronx
Hunts Point is a neighborhood located on a peninsula in the South Bronx of New York City. It is the location of one of the largest food distribution facilities in the world, the Hunts Point Cooperative Market. The neighborhood is part of Bronx Community Board 2. Its boundaries are the Bruckner Expressway to the west and north, the Bronx River to the east, and the East River to the south. Hunts Point Avenue is the primary street through Hunts Point. The neighborhood is considered to be a red-light district, because of its crime rate and prostitution. Zip codes include 10474. The neighborhood is served by the NYPD’s 41st Precinct.
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Aside from being a period of residential growth for Hunts Point, the 20th century has also been a time of industrial expansion for the peninsula. As more people moved to the area, the city’s business owners began to realize the advantages of locating to Hunts Point. Among them were the convenient access to the Tri-State region, the existing rail lines running through the Hunts Point area and the abundance of space available for the development of industrial and commercial activity.
This discovery led to an influx of businesses to the area. As the momentum of incoming businesses increased, the reputation of Hunts Point grew accordingly among business circles.[19] With the openings of the New York City Produce market in 1967 and Hunts Point Meat Market in 1974, and culminating with the designation of Hunts Point as an In-Place-Industrial Park in 1980, Hunts Point has grown into a successful economic zone. The Hunts Point Industrial Park hosts over 800 businesses providing an array of products and services to points throughout the world.
bronx river sankofa
A Hunt’s Point Walk: Part 2
September 3, 2014
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Hunt’s Point was largely a walk-to-work district 100 years ago when it was sometimes called “Little Pittsburgh” owing to its abundance of light and heavy industry. Notice the brightly colored and richly ornamented townhouses across the street from the garden where earlier generations lived. At that time, German was the Bronx’s second most common language.
Gotham Gazette
November 20, 2014
Remaking Hunts Point
In the 1950s, Hunts Point was known as “Little Pittsburgh” for its steel mills. Hebrew National, the Farberware pot and pan company, and Salton, which manufactures small appliances, all had factories in the area.
But in the 1960s these businesses started to close down, leaving Hunts Point an industrial district with little industry. To remedy that in 1967 Mayor John Lindsay proposed making Hunts Point the food center for New York and New Jersey, with a produce market known as the Hunts Point Terminal Market, a meat market—and the Fulton Fish Market. The meat and produce markets opened in 1970, but plans to move the fish market from Lower Manhattan stalled, first because of the city’s fiscal crisis and then because of concerns about crime in the Bronx.