Trucker Talk: By John & Kim Jaikes Many people often say, “I am never going to...” For most of my trucking career, I said, “I will never go to the Hunts Point Market.” The other old saying “never say never” is true, too. I never went to Hunts Point until John took me there for the first time in 2017. All the trucker lore (stories, legends and superstitions passed down among truck drivers) helped me make the decision this was a place I did not need or want to go. Back in the day, the stories were true, and I hope no one takes offense to the facts of a different time. The Hunts Point peninsula, located on the east side of Manhattan on the East River in New York, where the market is now located, was named after Thomas Hunt in the late 1600s. Hunt was an Englishman, and he, along with other wealthy individuals, built farmhouses and mansions there. Today, many of the streets there still bear their names. In 1874 Hunts Point was officially annexed to the Bronx. The rapid pace of the Industrial Age and construction of the New York New Haven Railroad put an end to farmhouses and mansions on the Point. The rural landscape was then transformed, as single-family homes and apartments were built in the northern part of the neighborhood. Today, the overarching term for the collection of markets at Hunts Point is the Hunts Point Food Distribution Center and includes three major markets – the Hunts Point Terminal Produce Market, the Hunts Point Cooperative Market (for meat and meat products), and the New Fulton Fish Market. Distributors and vendors lease space in their respective market. Many have been handed down for decades, or even a century – the customer John sometimes hauls for, Nathel & Nathel, recently celebrated their 100-year anniversary in 2022. Hunts Point is the largest distribution center of its kind in the world. New York City’s old Washington Market was, at various times during its 150-year-long history, dubbed the largest and most important market in the city. It was originally built in 1812 at the south end of what is now called Tribeca. Washington Market was just one of the many sprawling markets that sprung up in Manhattan in the 1800s including the Gansevoort Market, the Fulton Fish Market, the West Washington Market, the Manhattan Market, and others. The Washington Market continued to flourish, but by the late 1930s, the building became outdated. In 1941 a modern market was opened. The ornate stained-glass windows and terracotta embellishments were replaced with sleek enameled panels with boxy windows. By the 1950s, problems began to plague the market, and it was losing money each year because of the difficulty in getting goods to and from the market on the narrow, congested streets. Also, the city began to see the land on which it sat as a commodity more valuable than the old market itself. The final blow to the Washington Market was when the Washington Street Urban Renewal Plan put forth a master plan for the area the size of 24 city blocks around the market site. The plan included housing, a college and a public park, and it required the demolition of many historic structures. Today, One World Trade Center sits on the site that once was the Washington Market. A few of the buildings were spared in one of the city’s preservation campaigns, but not many. At that point, the market and its vendors were moved to make room for the construction of the Twin Towers. In 1967 the Hunts Point Terminal Produce Market officially opened, and merchants from the Washington Market relocated there. Situated on 113 acres, it became the largest fresh vegetable and fruit wholesale distribution center in the US. It is a logistical spectacle. Produce comes from 49 states and 55 countries, and the market handles over 120,000 tractor-trailers, 2,200 rail cars and over a million overnight buyers with small trucks and vans each year. Wholesale business is conducted within four main buildings, each one-third of a mile long, rows A-D, along platform floors that run parallel to one another like the tines of a fork. Each year about 2.7 billion pounds of produce are sold from the Market. Opened after the produce market, the Hunts Point Cooperative Market was the second of the three cooperatives. It was built in 1972 on 40 acres with six buildings, but was later expanded to seven buildings, sitting on 60 acres. There are 52 companies that process and distribute meat in just under 1,000,000 square feet. All the major equipment is operated and maintained by NYC engineers who are on the premises 24/7, 365 days a year. 76 10-4 Magazine / September 2025 NEVER SAY NEVER!
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