Direct delivery to the Bronx(Page 2 of 2)
Posted 5/30/12
FreshDirect should be commended for reversing an exclusive policy that amounted to redlining. Clearly, the company has found a way around its assertion — first reported in The Riverdale Press in June 2010 — that traffic flow issues kept it from delivering to certain neighborhoods and that it only delivered in areas that made a significant number of service requests.
It should commit to paying a living wage even though it managed to get approval for its warehouse just before the passage of legislation that would have required it to pay $10 an hour with benefits, $11.50 without. It should explore alternative fuel and hybrid options for its trucks and collaborations with local farmers to make the “eat local” logo on its trucks a reality. If we Bronxites remain vigilant, the company’s new policy of serving the neighborhood where it will be located will not be the last of its positive changes.
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FreshDirect not delivering in most of the Bronx was never an issue. Yes, it was eye-catching due to the irony, but it was never a central point of the community's opposition to them moving to our shores. Our fight is for access to our waterfront as a tool for health advancement. It is about our waterfront and our asthma epidemic.
It is obvious that FreshDirect delivering around the neighborhood will only exacerbate the pollution and contamination problem in the area, and again, that has always been the main issue. I am as green as they come, but let's be brutally clear: even with a full fleet of solar trucks (they don't exist!) more trucks means slower traffic, clogged streets, and hence, more pollution. What we need is access to our waterfront, as every other neighborhood in the city has a right to. We do not need FreshDirect throwing us crumbs to seem flexible; rather, we need the media and politicians to acknowledge the FreshDirect deal for what it really is: a blatant example of environmental racism. Yes, most of us down here are black and brown, and many of us were born abroad but, does that make us less human? More deserving of asthma? Less worthy of waterfront access and green open spaces? I don't think so. But that is precisely what is going on here. And shamefully, FreshDirect is being complicit in this crime.
If having FreshDirect in Mott Haven is acceptable for most Riverdale residents, then, have FreshDirect move to Riverdale. Mott Haven does not want them. What Mott Haven needs is its waterfront to face its health problems in a sustainable, green and empowering.
Mott Haven is asking for green open space and needs help to face its health problems. FreshDirect will bring more traffic and a permanent blockage of our waterfront. It is not only a shameful situation, but plainly immoral. And a superficially critical media does not help. We will not only be vigilant. We will not permit them to move to our shores. Plain and simple. It is not a done deal and will never be.
Thursday, May 31, 2012|Report this
@monxolopez
Not only does your comment apply to Fresh Direct, the same can be said for homeless shelters, half-way houses and drug rehabs. While the clients of these establishments deserve to be treated with the same dignity as folks who aren't in the midst of turmoil or struggling with addiction, it is painfuly obvious that neighborhoods with predominantly brown-skinned people are oversaturated with homeless shelters, drug rehabs and halfway houses. If you go to http://www.familywatchdog.us/ShowMap.asp?frm=0 you may be nauseated by the oversaturation of sex-offenders in the South Bronx as well.
Hold your local elected officials fully responsible for this phenomenon! The fact of the matter is, your local elected officials have the ability to fight for their constituents! Unfortunately, it seems all too obvious that the fight is abandoned during back room deals. While it may be wrong on so many levels, Riverdale politicians have done one hell of a job ensuring their constituents aren't directly affected by the "poors" or traffic congestion or the constant wail ing of FDNY/NYPD sirens in their leafy enclaves. I have often been jolted awake at night - not by the sound of gunfire - by the sound of explosions emanating from the Jerome Park Reservoir/Filtration Plant - which has devolved into a multi-billion dollar exercise in corruption and very little regard for the health of Bronx residents. If the politicians in the South Bronx aren't protecting their constituents and working in the best interests of residents who suffer from asthma, I believe its high time the bums were voted out of office. Friday, June 1, 2012|Report this
@chanley
Agree on all counts. Every neighborhood should do its part and carry its fair share of the the burden of dealing with the sadly difficult aspects of urban life. Among others, those can be issues like treatment to drug addiction, fairly distributing waste management sites and/or hosting businesses that bring with them unseemly consequences. Overburdening a few communities unfairly just shows a lack of care for its residents, and these deals show that those communities are always minority ones. That is racism. Period.
On the one hand we have the central and powerful elites from the State, City Hall and their friends who show no care for poor neighborhoods and decide to do these deals for their own good, but write their press releases purporting to do them for our own good; on the other hand you have some local elected officials and characters that think the only way to survive or make a buck is through poverty-pimping schemes and clientelist practices. In truth, however, most relevant local elected officials have come out strongly against the FreshDirect deal. Melissa Mark-Viverito, Maria del Carmen Arroyo and both State Senator Serrano and Congressman Serrano did so.
The only major local elected official still supporting this deal is Ruben Diaz Jr. But I reckon that our opposition to this deal -and any other in the pipeline- will teach Boro President Diaz that reaching just any kind of deal because the community is poor is not an acceptable manner of doing the public business. It was never right, but we are now fighting hard against such practices. Reminding them that being poor does not mean a lack of rights. Or that joblessness does not mean that people will take any kind of job. In the end that line of thinking perpetuates poverty and hopelessness. Perpetuating poverty and using it to get press releases and votes by seeming to care is poverty pimping.
The issue here is our health, green sustainability and waterfront access as a tool for health advancement.
Mott Haven is not about NIMBY, it is about not ALWAYS in my back yard. This issue clearly shows that the only things they will never take away from poor communities is their dignity, their rights and their tongues!!! Friday, June 1, 2012|Report this