00:00We are here in Hunts Point, through which so much of the food that nourishes New Yorkers travels
00:06before it arrives on a restaurant plate or lands in a grocery store cart.
00:11The Hunts Point Cooperative Market is nearby.
00:14As many of you know, it is the largest food distribution center anywhere in the world.
00:19The wholesalers who walk through its hundreds of thousands of feet of floor space
00:24can pick between some of the ripest produce in the region,
00:27some of the freshest fish on the East Coast,
00:31some of the highest quality meat anywhere in the country.
00:34And yet, so many New Yorkers in this same neighborhood and across the Bronx cannot say the same.
00:4177% of households in surrounding neighborhoods cannot afford basic needs.
00:46More than 50% of households have relied on public assistance in the last 12 months alone.
00:52And when nearby families go shopping for groceries, there are not enough affordable options nearby.
00:57With only one full-service supermarket within a quarter mile,
01:02thousands of New Yorkers have only limited options.
01:05We are here together today to change that and to chart a new course.
01:10Last month, we announced that we would fulfill a campaign promise,
01:13that we would lower prices by creating a network of city-owned grocery stores, one in each borough.
01:19In these stores, prices will be cheaper.
01:23Workers will be paid fairly and treated with dignity.
01:26Going to the grocery store will no longer cause that same anxiety for so many New Yorkers.
01:32Now, on April 13th, we announced the first site, La Marqueta en el Barrio.
01:41And in doing so, honoring the legacy of Fiorella LaGuardia,
01:45who opened a site close to 100 years prior with the same mission of delivering cheaper goods to New Yorkers.
01:51Today, my friends, I am so proud to announce that the Bronx location will be here at the peninsula.
02:03And New Yorkers will not need to wait long for costs to drop.
02:08This store will be the first of the five city-run grocery stores to open.
02:16Bronx residents will be able to begin shopping here next year.
02:22It is going to be a 20,000-square-foot location, and its ambition is perfectly placed at the peninsula,
02:30which will house 740 units of 100% affordable housing by the time that it's fully built.
02:36And as we heard from Jeannie, it will be located on the site of the former Spofford Juvenile Detention Facility,
02:43somewhere that for so many years was synonymous with neglect and mistreatment.
02:48This was a place of failure, where young, predominantly low-income New Yorkers were subjected
02:53to brutal physical conditions, human rights violations, and physical abuse.
02:58We are reclaiming that same site to tell a very different story.
03:03This store and the peninsula as a whole will serve as physical proof of our conviction
03:09that government can be a force for good, that government can drive change that improves people's lives.
03:17And standing here this morning, I cannot help but think of the words of our 40th president, Ronald Reagan.
03:23He famously said,
03:25The nine most terrifying words in the English language are,
03:29I'm from the government, and I'm here to help.
03:31It's a good quote, but I disagree.
03:34I think nine more terrifying words are actually,
03:37I worked all day and can't feed my family.
03:43We are going to use the power of government to lower prices and make it easier for New Yorkers to
03:49put food on the table.
03:50When government understands its purpose as serving the very working people that it has left behind time and again,
03:58it can make a difference in the most pressing struggles facing our city today.
04:03It's not just that government can help, it's that government must help, and our government will help.
04:15And I want to thank organized labor for being a part of this announcement,
04:20because as we have spoken about a cost of living crisis, as we have spoken about an affordability crisis,
04:26we know that at the heart of it is the inequality that runs rampant, not just in this city, but
04:30across the country.
04:31And when we ask ourselves, what is the most effective tool at combating that inequality?
04:36We come back to the same answer time and again, union density.
04:41And I thank you, all of you, for showing us time and again what a path looks like to actually
04:46deliver for working people.
04:47Because today, city government looks to join you in that same fight by making it easier for a working person
04:54to live and stay and build a life in the city that they have helped to run for so many
04:59years.
05:05This is the start of a new day for the Bronx, one that New Yorkers can actually afford.
05:11Now, it is such a pleasure and a privilege to be here with you.
05:16I am now going to pass the microphone back to Jeannie Pak, our interim president and CEO of the EDC.
05:22Thank you very much.
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