CITY OF NEW YORK, Hon. VICTOR L. ANFUSO, OFFICE OF COMMITTEE ON SLUM CLEARANCE, The House of Representatives, Washington, D. C. DEAR CONGRESSMAN: I read your comments regarding New York's Washington Produce Market in a recent newspaper article following an inspection tour and hearing by the subcommittee members of the House Committee on Agriculture. I thought you might therefore have an interest in some of our own experiences in dealing with plans we have proposed to clean up the market area. The entire market area has been the subject of study, discussion, and restudy for over 20 years. The old market place, in addition to being uneconomically managed, is run down and obsolete and should be replaced with modern facilities. We suggested a plan to be achieved under title I of the Federal Housing Act with Federal write-down aid. This would have provided a new market between the shoreline and the bulkhead line to be built by the Port of New York Authority. The old food market area would become the site of a large title I housing project which could provide appropriate development for the neighborhood for large numbers of middle income families. The inability of local officials to reach a decision as to the disposition of the market and the cutback in Federal title I write-down funds forced us to drop all plans for this development. Attached are copies of relevant material from our files with regard to the market plan including a map and write-down estimates for developing the housing. I am sure you will find them entertaining. Sincerely, ROBERT MOSES, Chairman.. THE PORT OF NEW YORK AUTHORITY, Mr. GEORGE SPARGO, Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, Randall's Island, New York, N. Y. DEAR GEORGE: I understand that the board of estimate approved the 10-year leases to the railroads, covering the pier property that would be required for any reconstruction of the Washington market. We will file the papers away in the archives. AUSTIN J. TOBIN, Executive Director. THE PORT OF NEW YORK AUTHORITY, Mr. GEORGE E. SPARGO, Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, New York, N. Y. DEAR GEORGE: After the meeting of the board of estimate on May 1 I suggested that it might be helpful for us to put together a brief memorandum for reference purposes on pros and cons of the proposal to move the wholesale produce market to the Bronx. I may say that I for one had not realized that the commissioner of markets was prepared to make an all-out recommendation in favor of the relocation of the market in the Bronx. In my argument to the members of the board therefore that that was a wholly unrealistic recommendation I was shooting from the hip. The enclosed staff memo should therefore be useful for purposes of staff reference in the event that there is any further consideration of the title I project. In this connection I note that the board of estimate has set public hearings for May 24 on the proposed leases of piers 19, 22, 27, 28, and 29.. These leases would be for a period of 10 years and in the event that they are approved any possible rebuilding of Washington Market under a title I project or otherwise is dead. I am enclosing an extract from the report of the New York State Temporary Commission on Agriculture dated March 17, 1955. As you know, this is sometimes referred to as the Erwin commission. Regardless of any im pression that may have been given to the board of estimate on May 1 kindly note that that committee agrees that the primary wholesale market should be redeveloped on the lower Manhattan waterfront rather than moved to the Bronx. I have sent a copy of this letter to Charlie Preusse for his own information and file reference. Sincerely yours, AUSTIN J. TOBIN, Executive Director. A MODERNIZED PRIMARY FRUIT AND VEGETABLE MARKET-WHERE SHOULD IT BE. LOCATED? In discussing the most desirable location of a modernized primary fresh fruit and vegetable receiving terminal and wholesale market, it must be understood that there are different kinds of markets which may be roughly classified as follows: 1. The primary receiving terminal and wholesale market for fresh fruits and vegetables in which carload lots are broken down into units of 20 to 100 packages for prompt sale to dealers from secondary markets who will in turn sell smaller package units to retailers. 2. The secondary or jobbing markets which exist in Brooklyn, Bronx, Manhattan, and nearby New Jersey, consisting of stores maintained by dealers who buy part of a carload (20 to 100 packages) in the primary wholesale market and resell in 1 to 5 package lots to retailers in their regions. 3. The retail outlets, which may be fruit and vegetable markets, grocery stores, chain units, supermarkets, municipal covered markets, etc., selling to the consumer. In talking about the needed modernization of the primary wholesale market, we are talking only about the first type, which is definitely a carload and wholesale operation handling in the magnitude of 400,000 packages within a few hours on a peak day. Further, it should be understood that not all types of fresh fruits and vegetables pass through this central primary market. Carloads of northern potatoes, for example, and certain other commodities which are well graded or storable for several days, pass directly into the secondary markets. Also, produce for many of the chainstores which has been purchased at shipping points on a preselected basis to fit the chainstore's unique requirements will come direct to chainstore terminals scattered about the district and are handled from those points by chainstore trucks to their neighborhood units. Dealers' stores, supported by railroad team tracks and even farmers' markets make up the typical secondary distributing market, of which there are numerous examples throughout the area, including the Bronx, Canarsie, etc. These arenecessary portions of the marketing system. However, they should not in any way be confused with the primary carload and truckload receiving terminal now located in lower Manhattan through which pass huge volumes sold in a very few hours in large lots by auction or private negotiation and trucked out to the secondary distribution points above mentioned. Shippers and dealers in the type of commodity which moves through the primary market are generally unanimous that such primary trading can take place efficiently at only one location and that attempts to divide the location of this primary receiving and wholesaling function, resulting in a split market, is bad both from the standpoint of the seller and of the buyer. In considering the proper location for such a central market, one element is convenient access from all parts of the area, both by the incoming railroads and trucks and by the trucks which redistribute to the secondary markets. Another important factor is ability to deliver, display, sort and assemble purchases promptly within an extremely few hours. Any inadequacy in transfer facilities such as float bridges between the railroad carfloats and land tracks would bottleneck the whole operation. One of the strong reasons for modernizing the primary market on the present lower Manhattan waterfront is the fact that the several railroads which deliver approximately 50 percent of the total fruits and vegetables to the central market (much of it from such distant points as California, Florida, Texas, Washington, etc.) are able to deliver this huge volume from their yards across a number of New Jersey rail treminal float bridges on to carfloats and unload at the numerous adjoining lower Manhattan piers, which would form the basis of any integrated new market. To attempt to land these cars across a single or limited number of float bridges into the yards and tracks available on Manhattan, the Bronx, or Long Island, would create a serious physical bottleneck. From this standpoint alone, the lower Manhattan waterfront has a decided advantage over any other location which would have to be served through switching of the railroad produce cars from the trans-Hudson floats into a land team track yard. For this reason, the Bronx is in a very unsatisfactory position since the New York Central (now handling only a small portion of the rail produce traffic) is the only carrier with al-rail access. To attempt to bring the rail deliveries coming in by the other carriers, through the New York Central's 60th Street float bridge yard on the west side of Manhattan up across the Spuyten Duyvil Bridge and back down into the Bronx is an impossibility in the light of the huge volume of traffic that has to be handled and sold in a few hours. The only other alternative method of reaching the Bronx is a long carfloat haul from the New Jersey rail terminals up the East River to a single carfloat bridge which was built by the city at the Bronx Market. The disadvantage in reaching the Bronx by all carriers involved is matched to a large extent by the problems involved in redistribution by truck from a primary market in the Bronx which would be at the rim instead of at the center of the heavy consumption areas, including Manhattan, Brooklyn, Staten Island, and parts of New Jersey. As a practical matter, if a Bronx primary market were built, it is difficult to see how the continued delivery of a substantial portion of the carloads and truckloads of fresh fruits and vegetables could be prohibited at the lower Manhattan terminals of the large produce-carrying railroads and the stores of the dealers in that area. The dealer stores in lower Manhattan which are owned by them are served by a local brine refrigerating system, and there are some 1,500,000 cubic feet of cold storage warehouses in that vicinity which are heavily used in summer months and which are also a strong magnet to the retention of a substantial volume in that area. Nothing would disrupt the primary market more than to split operations by attempting to transfer part of the auctioning or private selling of the carloads and truckloads in wholesale lots to the Bronx and to keep the remainder in lower Manhattan. This has been clearly and forcefully recognized in the conclusions and recommendations of the New York State Temporary Commission on Agriculture. The best evidence of how a misconception of the needs and realities of the produce marketing system resulted in a bad mistake was the unwise investment by the city of New York during the Hylan administration in the creation of the Bronx Terminal Market, as the first step in a decentralization program. On this point, the consulting firm of Madigan-Hyland in their report said: "It soon became apparent that the decentralization theory was erroneous and meant a complete disregard of the important price setting function of a primary market." Most informed persons believe that the New York metropolitan area needs a modern and efficient primary wholesale terminal loacted in the center together with proper development of secondary outlying regional markets as well as certain regional private receiving terminals constructed by the chainstores and supermarket units for their own business. Hon. GEORGE E. SPARGO, THE PORT OF NEW YORK AUTHORITY, General Manager, Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, New York, N. Y. DEAR GEORGE: Since our meeting of February 8, I have given considerable thought to the problems presented by the possibility that the city might invite the port authority to make a study of a new produce terminal in lower Manhattan. As I have advised you before, the port authority is not seeking to make such a study. As I have said in my letter to you of December 1, 1955, we are completely "noninterventionist" on this market project because we know from most unpleasant experience the complexities and difficulties of the problem. Those groups which have a vested special interest in the present operation can be expected to oppose any new market plan as vigorously as they have previous plans. I have particularly in mind the bitter opposition to the port authority's 1948 plan for a new produce terminal by the teamsters local then headed by Joe Papa. Papa was subsequently removed from office by the international brotherhood itself following disclosures by the New York State Crime Commission. But during the 1948 hearings before the board of estimate, Mayor O'Dwyer and other city officials not only permitted but virtually encouraged Papa's attacks on the market plan and on the character and good faith of the port authority itself. It was quite apparent that there was no disposition among the then members of the board of estimate to consider the market plan on its merits in the face of the teamster spokesman's opposition. Before any new study is undertaken, it might be well to acquaint Mayor Wagner and the present members of the board of estimate with this sordid piece of past history. In fact, if it is at all practical to do so, the current attitude of the teamsters union toward a new produce terminal facility might well be explored before the city requests the coordinator and the port authority to put a lot of time, energy, and money into a new study of such a project. There are other factors which the city should also consider carefully and make reasonably firm policy decisions on before initiating any new study. These factors, not necessarily listed in order of importance, include: 1. A determination not just to study, for study's sake, but actually to go forward with a new market project. As you know, the produce market terminal has been under study for at least the last 40 years. 2. Whatever pragmatic and political considerations the City Fathers might feel relevant to a decision to use the port authority as the city's chosen instrumentality to effectuate the new market project. I confess that I am not clear in my own mind as to what these factors are, but I assume that they can be weighed as well in advance as after the port authority has gone to the trouble and expense of a study of the project. 3. A determination of the location and functional scope of the project. As you know, the New York City Department of Markets has recently given strong support to the relocation of the wholesale terminal market to the Bronx. The 1954 annual report of that department notes also that the mayor's market advisory committee has advocated an expanded market in the Bronx. On the other hand, Manhattan Borough President Jack is forming a committee on the Washington Market for the purpose, presumably, of retaining the market in lower Manhattan. As you know, the port authority's concept of a new market contemplates the relocation of the wholesale function in a new facility built over the North River waterfront in the area running generally from piers 19 to 30. All Manhattan primary delivery and wholesaling operations for fresh fruits and vegetables would be transferred to this new facility. This relocation would free for redevelopment the entire area now preempted by the present scattered, congested, and obsolete upland store market area-except for such portion of that area as might be necessary for the continued accommodation of stores for jobbers buying fresh fruits and vegetables at the waterfront wholesale terminal for sale in small package lots to retailers in nearby Manhattan and vicinity, and store traders in such commodities as butter, eggs, and poultry. We believe there is a place for other types of regional markets in the Bronx, Brooklyn, and New Jersey where dealer store centers should be encouraged for sales to retailers, farmers' markets, and for direct delivery of the kinds of fresh fruits and vegetables which can be sold direct from shipping point without passing through a central trading terminal. Before any detailed study is undertaken, the city should decide whether it is in general accord with this concept. Its ultimate implementation would, of course, require cooperation of the city through the exercise of its police powers with respect to traffic control and sanitary regulations, licensing, etc., and nonleasing of other city-owned waterfront to fresh fruit and vegetable carriers. More immediately, the city will have to meet the problem presented by the fact, which I have mentioned to you before, that the railroads now occupy pier stations in the market area between piers 19 and 30 on a month-to-month basis. For the past 2 years the board of estimate has had before it for approval longterm leases of these various piers to their railroad occupants. Only last Thursday, at the regular meeting of the board, on motion of the mayor, these leases were referred back to the commissioner of marine and aviation and the mayor stated that the commissioner expected to have new leases ready for approval by the board at the second meeting in March. (See this morning's Times, p. 44.) The mayor made reference to a letter on the subject from Commissioner O'Connor dated February 21. Obviously, if the board of estimate approves long-term leases on the piers involved in the market area, there is no point to studying the establishment of new market facilities in the same area. 4. Revenue-bond financing of the new market facilities would obviously require a long-term lease of the underlying property. It is quite possible that the economics would dictate that rental payments to the city for the waterfront be placed on an if-earned basis. The city of Philadelphia, which is establishing a new terminal market, has found it necessary to agree that its costs of acquiring the necessary property be treated as a junior obligation in the financing proposed by the market corporation in that city. Incidentally, they put out an excellent brochure on the public necessity for a new market, a copy of which I am enclosing for your inspection and return. Since there are no more available and this is our library copy, I would appreciate your returning the brochure at your convenience. 5. In our 1949 revised New York City waterfront proposal we pointed out that the produce market project had been omitted because of the difficulties raised by the imposition of added railroad charges for unloading fresh fruits and vegetables at the New York pier stations. Although attacks on this added charge have met with some success, the case is still pending before the ICC. We expect the final ICC decision in the next few months, but this administrative decision is, of course, subject to further challenge in the courts. Very serious attention must therefore still be given to this factor. The factors which I have enumerated above indicate some of the problems which will have to be resolved, many of them even before a study could or should be undertaken by the port authority. In your own plans for a possible title I development in the area now preempted by the present obsolete market facilities, I would therefore urge that there be no presumption at this time that a new wholesale market facility out over the waterfront is economically feasible and politically practicable. In the light of the above considerations and of declining volumes of produce receipts into lower Manhattan, it simply would not be realistic to approach the project with any great assurance. As I have advised you before, the port authority is not seeking to make a new market study. On the other hand, as I have also advised you, we would consider it our statutory duty to make such a study provided the city really wants us to do so. You will, I am sure, appreciate the understandable reluctance of our commissioners to authorize the expenditure of the considerable time, effort, and money involved in such a study unless and until all the parties concerned understand the problems and are prepared earnestly and sincerely to cope with them. Sincerely, Austin, AUSTIN J. TOBIN, Executive Director. [From the New York Times, February 27, 1956] CITY WILL REVIVE RAIL PIER LEASES-5 LINES PAY $1,731,000 FOR USE OF 22 DOCKS-LAST PACT EXPIRED IN 1950 (By Charles G. Bennett) Railroad leases for 22 city piers are about to be renegotiated after a lapse of 5 to 10 years. The prospective reestablishment of the leases was described yesterday by Controller Lawrence E. Gerosa as a major step in the rehabilitation of the city's waterfront. The new leases are being drafted by Vincent A. G. O'Connor, marine aviation commissioner. The piers, used by 5 railroads under 18 separate leases, have a replacement value of $38,600,000. Under a rental formula established in 1948, the piers return $1,731,000 a year to the city in rents. |