Bronx Bazaar.

Hunt's Point is a 110-acre wholesale produce market in the southeast Bronx. Half the produce that New Yorkers eat is brought into Hunt's Point, where it is then resold in an orgy of capitalism. Hunt's Point is the stock exchange for fruits and vegetables.

I go up one morning at 6:30, long before my usual hour of rising, though it is the beginning of the second, and calmer, shift of a Hunt's Point "day," which begins the previous night. My guide is one of three brothers who run a wholesale distribution company. They are grandsons of a Sicilian immigrant; the business still draws immigrants. "English," my host tells me, "is a third language here." The other languages I hear are Korean, Spanish, and Urgent, which is transcultural.

"They're crappy, but the twelve pallets sitting next to them are crappier."

". . . same f***ing size, and there're six more to a box."

The market has four rectangular warehouses, each a third of a mile long. Two loading docks run down either side of each building. Behind each dock is a row of high-ceilinged refrigerated rooms, called boxes, for temporary storage. Above the boxes are offices, strung along a hallway as spare as a cellblock. First thing my guide does is catch up on the last shift's activity, and the prices of the moment. This is done by computer printout, phone, and talk.

"Nine dollars? [a low price]"

"We gotta sell 'em."

The activity is like race cars crisscrossing an arena, with no track. Only relentless attention can see one through. "You've got to have an addictive personality to sell produce."

A bunch of broccoli in California is brought out of the ground by a grower. It then passes to a packer, who boxes it, then hands it to a shipper, who sends it to the hungry East Coast. All three operations may be performed by the same firm, or by three different firms. Most shipping to New York is done by truck (500 to 700 tractor trailers come into Hunt's Point every day).

"Trains are cheaper," my host explains, "but they are unreliable. They lose track of cars." Try sitting on a siding for a week, and see if you don't turn gray. When the produce arrives at Hunt's Point, it is bought by wholesale distributors, like my guide, who sell it in turn to the purveyors who supply small groceries and restaurants. My host and a Korean buyer give each other the finger, the greeting of old friends. The Korean samples one of his berries.

"What are you doing?" my host asks, razzing him.

"Maybe I buy 'em. You got a problem?"

All along the loading dock, the distributors set up displays of samples. Looking at their wares is like window shopping without glass. There is fennel, cantaloupes, potatoes, onions, okras, celery knobs with wizened faces, papayas. My host hefts a huge papaya. "Nice footballs here. Are these good to eat?" The wholesaler shrugs, as if to say: Who eats? "I sell it." Smaller firms catering to ethnic niche markets display star fruit, cactus leaves, coconuts, horn melon, jicamas, tomatillos. Some items, my host thinks, are slowly losing popularity -- peas, artichokes. Others, like mangos, are coming on strong. "Fifteen years ago, mangos were specialty, specialty, specialty. We're just catching up with the rest of the world." Some items resist the tide of fashion. "Carrots are safe."

Most of the produce at the market goes straight into the refrigerated rooms, where it awaits resale. The tomato box has a slightly acid smell, the fruit boxes smell sweet. I see crates of blackberries, strawberries, blueberries; apples from New York, Pennsylvania, Washington State, Chile; black grapes from the Stellenbosch Vineyards of South Africa. Three Korean men argue over a stack of PERAS ARGENTINAS.

My host discourses on the shortcomings of his fellows in the produce business. "Growers are ignorant. They don't get markets." Proud parents, they are too partial to what they grow. "No one ever has an ugly child." But since peak season is also the season of glut, fruits and vegetables fetch the lowest prices when they are at their best. "When produce is the most beautiful -- when it's a work of nature -- then it's cheapest. When you only have crap to choose from, then the price is in the clouds."

The other external factor affecting Hunt's Point is the parallel produce market that supplies national retail chains. Supermarkets are big customers at Hunt's Point, but they only do a fraction of all their buying there. They get the bulk of their stock from national food suppliers. Working together, the national suppliers and supermarket chains account for the other half of the produce sold in New York. But since supermarkets must prepare their ads weeks in advance, they are prey to fluctuations of weather: cold snaps, heat waves, storms, droughts. When their suppliers come up short, they have to go to Hunt's Point to make up the difference.

In 1967, when the produce market moved from its previous location, Washington Street on the lower West Side of Manhattan, there were 250 distributors. Now there are about 60. A lot of that shrinkage is the result of consolidation, as the healthier distributors acquire new lines of produce (my guide and his brothers just hired a potato and onion man, a family first). What should keep Hunt's Point going is the pressure of urban life. People eat out, so there are many restaurants. People will not walk the extra block to a supermarket, so there are corner grocery stores. These small retailers cannot buy from the same companies that supply ShopRite. So the faceless metropolis is the refuge of diversity.

By 9:30 in the morning, my guide and his brothers have moved 46,000 boxes of produce. The entire market, he guesses, will have moved 600,000 boxes. At four o'clock in the afternoon, buying and selling cease so the market can be cleaned for two hours. Then the action starts all over again. People have to eat.