Hunts Point, the Bronx: Food Markets, Waterfront Parks and THE POINT

The Parks properties along the water anchor the peninsula. Hunts Point Riverside Park, where Lafayette Av reaches the Bronx River, was the first section of the South Bronx Greenway to be built; Majora Carter spearheaded it, and NYC Parks calls it a gateway to the revitalized Bronx River and a major connector to the Bronx River Greenway. Barretto Point Park, opened in 2006, looks out to North and South Brother Islands, which are closed to the public. The Tiffany Street Pier lies immediately west of that park and predates it, though NYC Parks classes the pier as a Waterfront Facility rather than a park.

Joseph Rodman Drake Park & Enslaved African Burial Ground is on Oak Pt. Ave. bet. Hunts Pt. Ave. and Longfellow Ave. Three smaller Parks properties sit inside the street grid: Hunts Point Playground on Spofford Av, whose historical sign carries the fullest NYC Parks account of the neighborhood's past; Barretto Park on Barretto St, a separate property from Barretto Point Park despite the shared name; and Julio Carballo Fields on Manida St, named for the founder of the Carballo Youth Baseball League.

Wikipedia's history of Hunts Point names the Wecquaesgeek, a Munsee-speaking band of Wappinger people. NYC Parks' historical sign at Hunts Point Playground carries the later record: the annexation of 1874, the Fox, Tiffany and Leggett landowners, and the acquisition, building and successive restorations of the playground site between 1929 and 2015.

Two buildings stand on Lafayette Avenue. The American Bank Note Company Printing Plant, Gothic-inspired and built between 1909 and 1911, has been a New York City landmark since 2008; it holds a charter school and offices of the Human Resources Administration, and is one to look at from the street. Corpus Christi Monastery houses a Dominican community of cloistered contemplative nuns, founded in the 1890s.

Three food markets occupy the peninsula: the Hunts Point Cooperative Market, the New York City Terminal Produce Market and the New Fulton Fish Market. Wikipedia describes the Cooperative Market as a 24/7 wholesale facility with its own Hunts Point Department of Public Safety of about 45 NYC special patrolmen.

THE POINT CDC works from 940 Garrison Ave., with a second address, its Riverside Campus for Arts and The Environment, at 1391 Lafayette Ave. It runs the Hunts Point Fish Parade & Arts Festival, an annual June event whose 20th anniversary it marked in 2023 under the theme "Rooted Visions." Its own neighborhood history names the Hunts Point Palace among the clubs and dance halls where jazz musicians played, recalls casitas and community gardens and the graffiti "Que Viva Puerto Rico Libre" in the 1970s, and calls the Spofford Juvenile Center "a symbol of pain, abuse, corruption, and neglect."

Bronxlandia, at 910 Hunts Point Avenue, describes itself as a live events venue in the South Bronx and offers rehearsal and event space for booking. Boogie Down Grind Café is open Monday to Saturday by its own posted hours, with no Sunday listed.

The Hunts Point Avenue station is at Hunts Point Avenue and Southern Boulevard, in the Longwood and Hunts Point neighborhoods of the Bronx, and the 6 serves it. It opened on January 7, 1919. Squire Vickers designed its mosaic friezes, in blue, grey and beige with pale pink, and the large identifying plaques show "H P"; the platform columns are dark green I-beams. The station has been ADA-accessible since November 18, 2014, when three elevators were installed at a cost of $17.8 million.

The Longwood Avenue station is at Longwood Avenue and Southern Boulevard in the Longwood neighborhood of the Bronx. Wikipedia's Hunts Point article lists it among the subway stations serving Hunts Point.

That article also lists bus routes serving the neighborhood: the Bx5, to Co-op City and Bay Plaza Shopping Center via Bruckner Boulevard and Story Avenue; the Bx6 and the Bx6 Select Bus Service, to Washington Heights or the Hunts Point Cooperative Market via Hunts Point Avenue; and the Bx46, to Longwood or the Hunts Point Cooperative Market via Longwood Avenue and Tiffany Street. Confirm current service with the MTA before travelling.