Hunts Point Market, Called ‘Grocer's Dream,’ Proving Nightmare to Many - The New York Times

It's tomato season. A decade ago, farm trucks would be rolling into the Washington Street Market every evening, laden with crimson, tart, sunsweetened tomatoes picked only hours earlier. By morning, they would be on sale in produce stores and on pushcarts. The old market is gone, as are the pushcarts, many of the produce stores and many of the farmers. Today, at the New York City Produce Terminal in Hunts Point—the largest fruit ana vegetable market in the United State.; —a true vine‐ripened tomato cannot be found. All are picked “mature green,” with a dash of pink at best, and weir endowed for shelf life, As needed, they may be ripened quickly with ethylene gas. The switch from Washington Street to Hunts Point, and from sun‐ripe to ethylene, marks a revolution in American food production, transportation, marketing and consumption. These changes are so rapid that if they continued they would make Hunts Point itself obsolete. When the old market closed in 1967, to give way to the World

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