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."