{"id":364956,"date":"2026-10-05T17:25:31","date_gmt":"2026-10-05T17:25:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/364956\/"},"modified":"2026-10-05T17:25:31","modified_gmt":"2026-10-05T17:25:31","slug":"mamdani-faces-pressure-to-forge-ahead-with-plan-to-fix-polluting-south-bronx-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/364956\/","title":{"rendered":"Mamdani faces pressure to forge ahead with plan to fix polluting South Bronx market"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pressure is mounting on Mayor Zohran Mamdani to revive a $650 million plan to reduce pollution at Hunts Point Produce Market<\/a> in the South Bronx, where diesel-spewing refrigerated trailers contribute to some of the worst air quality in the city.<\/p>\n

The wholesale produce market, which provides as much as 60% of the city\u2019s fruits and vegetables, relies on as many as 1,000 refrigerated trailers running around the clock to keep food cold. Each trailer produces emissions equivalent to 330 truck trips on the Cross Bronx Expressway every day, according to a press release from Gov. Kathy Hohcul earlier this year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

After years of planning and negotiations, then-Mayor Eric Adams last year announced a plan to modernize the market, which is the largest of its kind in the country.<\/p>\n

As part of the project, four warehouses would have been replaced by two modern facilities that would eliminate the need for the refrigerated trailers. Gothamist exclusively reported last week details on how the deal fell apart amid concerns from the cooperative of produce operators about the new facility\u2019s design.<\/p>\n

Mamdani has suggested the Adams administration\u2019s plan \u2013 which was slated to receive hundreds of millions of dollars in state and federal funding \u2013 is now dead in the water. But some officials are urging him to take a second look.<\/p>\n

City Comptroller Mark Levine described the project as \u201cone of the most important economic development projects in New York City.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor a lot of reasons, we cannot let this fail,\u201d Levine said. \u201cYou can’t leave 1,000 diesel trailers running 24-7 as a refrigeration solution in a modern American city. That’s just not acceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n

The South Bronx, which is one of the poorest urban areas in the country, has some of the dirtiest air in the city and high rates of respiratory illness. The refrigerated trailers, along with the trucks coming and going from the market and traffic on the Cross-Bronx Expressway, are big contributors to the pollution that gave the South Bronx the nickname \u201cAsthma Alley.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe South Bronx is always kind of neglected,\u201d said Kayla Tolentino, a 26-year-old who stood outside a building near the Hunts Point subway station. \u201cIt always gets a bad reputation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tolentino, who works at BronxWorks, a social services organization, said she was diagnosed with asthma when she was six weeks old. One in five children in the area develop asthma.<\/p>\n

Elaine Cruz, 69, said she was prescribed an inhaler about 10 years ago. \u201cYou can feel it,\u201d she said about the pollution. \u201cThe quality of the air is very thick.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sitting on a corner outside a bodega on Hunts Point Avenue, Jason Johnson, 39, was visiting his old neighborhood. He said he developed asthma at 7 years old, and moved upstate four years ago because he wanted his children to breathe cleaner air.<\/p>\n

\u201cI come down here and I\u2019m always congested,\u201d he complained. \u201cMamdani should jump on this ASAP.”<\/p>\n

Speaking on WNYC\u2019s \u201cThe Brian Lehrer Show,\u201d Mamdani blamed Adams officials for rushing the deal. He said the project\u2019s current iteration \u201cis not one that\u2019s moving forward,\u201d but added that the city has not given up on \u201celectrifying or modernizing more of the market.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paul Williams, who heads the think tank Center for Public Enterprise, said the Hunts Point plan is aligned with Mamdani\u2019s affordability agenda. The mayor has a plan to create five city-owned grocery stores<\/a>, the first of which will open in Hunts Point.<\/p>\n

\u201cSecuring and investing in the supply chain for groceries in New York City creates grocery affordability for all 8 million New Yorkers, not just in the neighborhoods where the proposed city-owned stores are,\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n

Nate Bliss, a former Economic Development Corporation official who spent years assembling the plan, penned an op-ed<\/a> last week in City & State arguing that Mamdani should revise \u2013 but not scrap \u2013 the plan.<\/p>\n

\u201cFresh scrutiny can uncover better approaches, protect public dollars and ensure that projects reflect the current priorities,\u201d he said. \u201cBut there is a difference between reassessing a project and starting from scratch.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNew York cannot afford to repeatedly discard this accumulated momentum whenever leadership changes,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Some residents expressed faith that the new mayor could pay attention to their long-ignored neighborhood.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe’s been implementing some really good things,\u201d Cruz said. She cited Mamdani\u2019s plans to open city-run grocery stores<\/a> to increase access to fresh, affordable food and the introduction of more portable public bathrooms<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Not far from the market, the city is working with a nonprofit to build 96 units of affordable housing. The site will also be the home of Mamdani’s first municipal grocery store.<\/p>\n

But she also wondered whether private companies in the South Bronx that rely on polluting trucks and trailers would sacrifice their bottom line to help the community.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo would they even take the time to think of the people living in the communities and doing something about the quality of the air?\u201d she said. \u201cI’m not too confident in that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pressure is mounting on Mayor Zohran Mamdani to revive a $650 million plan to reduce pollution at Hunts…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":364957,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,9,24,63,129,131,130],"class_list":["post-364956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-bronx","tag-bronx","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-the-bronx","tag-the-bronx-headlines","tag-the-bronx-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364956\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/364957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}