New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1920-07-20
Urges Terminal
Markets to Cut
City Food Cost.
Commissioner O'Malley Sees
Saving of Billion Dol
lars i'm Three Years by
Spending IS Millions
Would Avoid Heavy Waste
Holds System Would Halt
Profiteers and Prove a
Protection to Consumer

New York can save a billion dollars
in food costs within three years by
spending $75ooO,oO0 to build terminal
markets for the five boroughs."
That is the burden of a statement
issued yesterday by Edwin j. OMalley,
Commissioner of Markets, in announc-
ing tentative plans for such markets in
Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Bronx,
and preliminary plans for Queens and
Richmond.
To show how the city suffers for
lack of these markets Mr.. O'Malley
cites the following facts and figures:
Every night the railroads dump from
$50 to 300 carloads of perishable foods
at Jersey City from cars extending be-
tween the yards at Henderson Street
to Port Kearny, a point nearby nine
miles from the Pennsylvania terminal,
whence they are hauled at tremendous
expense. This waste is due not to
over-aupply, but to poor distribution.
Spectators buy foodstuffs on con-
pretexts if the market won't permit
the profit they would like. Invariably
the railroad companies sell the stuff
without the formality of advertising
that is required by law. Often the
same spectators buy it from the roads
for less than freight charges. A large
trunk line road admits that ten car
loads of Spanish onions, bought in
Texas for from $1,000 to $1,000 a car,
sold here at from 5000 to $500 car
only two carloads paying the freight
The farmer is the goat.
Profits Made in Potatoes
Last October farmers of Maine,
Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania and
Wisconsin sold potatoes at 2h to 81
cents pound. Spectators sold them
late in the winter at SIS a barrel, an
advance Of 800 per cent. Commits
sioner O'Malley had advised the public
to buy winter supply at $3.50 a bag
of 100 pounds.
Consumers paid $250,0o0,o00 beyond
100000 bushels of potatoes con-
stunned during the winter within ra-
dius of fifty miles from the City Hall
Adequate storage facilities would have
made that impossible. For the same rea-
son the loss in sweet potatoes con-
signed to this district was 100000
Producers store potatoes IN the ground
losing about 80 per cent. In proper
terminals the loss would be less than
half of per cent, and the price to
the consumer would be about so per
cent lower. Also it would remain level.
At present the producer stores potatoes
at the production source, and can't ship
in the freezing months.
Miles of loaded trucks waste hours
in idle waiting at Jersey City term
inals, increasing expenses vastly. The
railroads can't operate enough ferry
boats to handle the traffic. Freight
charges aren't less, being the same to
yards nine miles out as they would be
to New York piers.
Extra haulage and incidental vast
age, through freezing and willing, adds
$15,000,000 a year to the cost of food
stuffs New York uses. This equals a
5 per cent return on a $300,000,00O
investment Add to this $2,50O,0GO, the
cost of carting live poultry.
Beyond all these COSTS" Mr. O'Mal.
ley declares, "there is an appalling cost
which we hesitate to calculate, the
cost Of redistribution. Unnecessary
delays due to traffic congestion, vast,
thoroughfares, labor devoted to un,
necessary work-all of these represent
sum that staggers the imagination
a sum that must be paid by the average
citizen in the form of higher rents OF
higher taxes"
For want Of storage space the city
recently has refused millions Of pound!
of New Zealand beef, lamb, mutton
Danish and Australian butter. which
might have sold at a third of the pre-
vailing prices. Butter sells at 26 cent
pound in Australia, and the maximum
legal retail charge for bacon is 1917
cents a pound.
Terminal markets will be a profit
able investment for the city," says
O'Malley. From the moment of com
pletion they will return a proftabl,
revenue on the invested capital TO-
space and service"