Essential Business
Keeping the Bronx fed in the midst of a pandemic
Excerpt: Like all diseases, COVID-19 feeds on penury, and in the Bronx—which has been hit twice as hard as Manhattan—nearly one in three people lives below the poverty line. The South Bronx in particular forms part of the poorest congressional district in America. The average life expectancy here is ten years shorter than it is in Greenwich Village. Diabetes and hypertension rates soar above the city average. A curtain of smog rings the neighborhood—a product of three nearby highways, a massive garbage facility, a Wall Street Journal printing plant, a Fresh Direct warehouse, and the trucks that stream in and out of Hunts Point, the supply center for much of the city’s restaurants.