The Fight Against Fresh Direct

*FreshDirect trucks parked along the South Bronx waterfront.*

"Not One More Truck."

In 2012, under the Bloomberg and Cuomo administrations, New York State and City offered FreshDirect — an online grocer — over $130 million in taxpayer subsidies to relocate their diesel trucking operation to the South Bronx waterfront.

The site: a 94-acre public lot on the Harlem River known as Harlem River Yards. This is the same site where we have advocated for a community visioned waterfront.

The plan meant 1,000 diesel truck trips through our neighborhood. Every single day.

Not one more truck, we demanded. Enough is enough.

Our Community Was Already at a Breaking Point

The South Bronx didn't arrive at this fight from a place of comfort.

Decades of policy decisions had already encircled our two-square-mile community with three highways and five bridges, and zoned our neighborhood for 850 acres of industrial contamination.

We have one of the lowest per capita rates of access to green space in the city. The result: the South Bronx has some of the highest asthma-related death and disease rates in the country.

Now the City and State wanted to incentivize even more pollution.

We also knew the jobs being promised would pay low wages and not prioritize local residents.

As South Bronx Unite co-founder Mychal Johnson put it: "Of course we want jobs, but we should not have to choose between having a job and having clean air. If you can't breathe, you can't work."

We Came Together to Fight Back

South Bronx Unite formed as a diverse coalition of neighborhood residents, community organizations, religious groups, and many others to challenge the subsidy and the plan.

In 2013, backed by 50 organizations and supported by expert testimony, we filed a lawsuit against the City and State for their failure to conduct an adequate environmental review. Instead, they choose to rely on an environmental impact statement from 1993, over two decades out of date.

We argued the relocation would increase traffic and worsen already-dangerous air quality.

We demanded a modern environmental impact statement.

We didn't stop at the courthouse.

We organized demonstrations and marches, engaged in direct actions, attracted media attention, wrote op-eds, offered public testimony, and reached out to local legislators. We conducted community outreach to make sure our neighbors understood what was at stake.

Despite the overwhelming evidence, the lawsuit and appeal were both dismissed. The court ruled in favor of the City and FreshDirect, citing the outdated 1993 review as sufficient. FreshDirect opened its facility in 2018. They began to poison our air with the help of our tax dollars.

We Lost That Battle. But It Gave Birth to South Bronx Unite.

Since FreshDirect moved in, we have watched traffic and air quality worsen.

A study conducted by Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health between June 2017 and May 2020 revealed an increase in truck and vehicle traffic between 10 and 40 percent, especially during overnight hours.

Mark Hilpert, Ph.D., an associate professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia and a senior author of the study, put it plainly: "Even small increases in air pollution are a concern to this community which is already overburdened by high levels of air pollution and related health risks. In most New York City neighborhoods, air pollution levels have been in decline, and air pollution sources have been reduced or removed, not added. Mott Haven, which had higher than average amounts of pollutants from traffic and other sources even before the opening of this warehouse, is an exception."

Since then, we have seen traffic and air quality worsen, with 1,000 Fresh Direct diesel truck trips running through our neighborhood every day.

In most New York City neighborhoods, air pollution levels have been in decline, and air pollution sources have been reduced or removed, not added. Mott Haven, which had higher than average amounts of pollutants from traffic and other sources even before the opening of this warehouse, is an exception."

More Broken Promises from Fresh Direct

During the fight against FreshDirect, they agreed to a non-binding memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Bronx borough president that they would shift their fleet to electric.

More than a decade since that agreement, FreshDirect’s trucks are not electric. They continue to spew diesel fumes into the lungs that our children breathe.

We Imagine a Different Future

Over a decade later, we continue to fight for the South Bronx. Our work has expanded to include air quality monitoring, public health equity, green space advocacy, and community-driven development.

We work to empower our community to have a voice in how our land is used, how our environment is treated, and how we can all thrive together.

We imagine a neighborhood where, instead of pollution and truck-heavy industry, we have parks and green spaces. Instead of unaffordable, rising rents, we have safe, dignified housing for the people who built this community against the odds.

Instead of a cycle of poor education and a lack of job prospects, we empower our neighbors with the skills to succeed in the coming green economy.

Our community is an epicenter for environmental injustice and broken promises. But we are also an epicenter for resistance, resilience, and reimagination.