Online grocers such as FreshDirect are now using local garages and lots as distribution hubs, but the move is riling residents on the Upper West Side.
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It turns out FreshDirect and Peapod are using an Upper West Side garage — Impark at 200 West 79th Street — as a distribution hub, according to the garage’s manager. Vans can be seen pulling up to the entrance — on 78th Street, between Broadway and Amsterdam — and crates and bags are offloaded onto cargo bikes, which pull small trailers behind them, for “last-mile delivery.” We’re told the cargo bikes are stored at the garage.
In an effort to reduce traffic and pollution, Mayor de Blasio announced new funding late last year for a program to encourage sustainable delivery methods such as cargo bikes. But when the ex-mayor first spoke in 2019 about a pilot program for the bikes, he said they were to be stored overnight in company facilities.
The activity has been disturbing at least one resident of 200 West 79th Street. They tell us the unloading takes place in the early morning and late at night and is loud, and that the bikes and vans have been driving on the sidewalks and posing a danger to locals. A “ghost bodega” in Brooklyn reportedly began causing a similar ruckus last year.
@reeftechnology trucks making “last-mile” food deliveries from the garage at 200 West 79th Street pic.twitter.com/v7szgOZEaS
— I Love The Upper West Side (@iLoveTheUWS) February 26, 2022
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These operations are overseen by Reef Technology, which bought Impark in 2018.
According to Reef’s website, the company “transform[s] underutilized urban spaces into neighborhood hubs that connect people to locally curated goods, services, and experiences.” CEO Ari Ojalvo believes that parking lots “should be more than a place to store your car. Rather, it can be a hub for the community, connecting people to the businesses and services that keep us all moving forward.”
The company is working with delivery services like Uber and DoorDash in other cities and plans to roll out its concept in “several hundred markets in North America and the U.K.”
For news across the park visit EastSideFeed.com
Sources say the practice of using garages this way in New York has become increasingly common, as has the use of cargo bikes. Sources at FreshDirect first spoke in 2012 of using bicycles to deliver goods.
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Executives at AKAM Associates, which manages 200 West 79th Street, tell us they are looking into the situation. We received the following email from the “manager of client success:”
“Thank you for reaching out to feedback regarding confirmation on the garage space behind in the rear of 200 West 79th Street. For your convenience, I am immediately escalating this matter to be addressed by copying the property manager and his assistant. Somebody should be reaching out to you as soon as they are able for resolution.”
Following this initial response, a “management executive” sent an email saying they’re “addressing this.” We’ve also reached out to Reef Technology for comment; we’ll provide an update if and when we learn more.
Except that Fresh Direct is using offstreet parking spaces, for which I assume Fresh D pays a fee, seems better than Amazon Logistics (Merchants Fleet trucks) which regularly take-block avenue traffic lanes for hours; this while the Fresh Direct trucks will be parked in a standing zone — some times a bit too close to a hydrant — in the immediate area.
In short, Amazon Logistic is a much bigger problem regards abusive deliverying on the UWS. Bigger than UPS, FedEx, and USPS, + oil trucks too and construction materials trucks too.
Jay,
The reason that Fresh Direct and Amazon are bigger problems than UPS, FedEx. and USPS is because their business model is not to employ skilled drivers (UPS employees are Teamsters, FedEx employees are not unionized but get prevailing wage rates similar to UPS) that load trucks at a central depot in an industrial area and then individually deliver packages to each building. Rather, their method is to dump as much product onto the streetscape which they confiscate without paying anything to anybody, and then give contracts to “last mile delivery courier services” that employ these individuals with bikes and rolling carts to make the deliveries to each building like indentured slaves from these confiscated streetscapes. It is Fresh Direct and Amazon’s way of paying the least out in overhead for deliveries, no matter what it does to the streetscape. I am sure that Jeff Bezos doesn’t have trucks dump their load in front of his mansion to parted out to couriers, nor does the co-founder of Fresh Direct have this problem in front of his mansion in Bellport, Long Island. IT IS A DISGUSTING WAY OF DOING BUSINESS AND RUINS THE QUALITY OF LIFE FOR THE REST OF US IN THIS CITY, and Bezos, Amazon, and Fresh Direct are exploitive pieces of shit. (No, I have never used Amazon nor Fresh Direct nor will I ever – I actually go to stores to purchase things).
GK:
The problem is that you didn’t read my comment:
I didn’t ask the question/s you answered.
I pointed out that Amazon Logistics is much worse about illegally taking avenue/street traffic lanes than Fresh Direct and I pointed out that this reporting is whining about Fresh Direct paying to use off street parking spaces so as to NOT clog streets and avenues illegally as Amazon does.
Complain all you want about Amazon and Fresh Direct underpaying people, UPS underpays helpers too, and FedEx plays “independent” contractor games with the drivers of its delivery trucks, BUT don’t pretend that Fresh Direct, or FedEx/UPS, are anywhere near the abusers of the law that Amazon is.
Jay, I agree with everything you said 100%. I walk NYC streets every single day, and see both Fresh Direct and Amazon doing their “street breakdown of merchandise, sorting and assembling customer orders”. It just happens that in the one case the article cites, Fresh Direct is paying for off-street space, but it is still doing most of its business ON NYC streets. Fresh Direct should spend the money and time processing their orders for delivery at a warehouse in an industrial zone, and then delivering them individually off of a truck, not doing order processing in a parking garage under a residential building in a residential neighborhood on the Upper West Side. Let’s just agree that both Fresh Direct and Amazon completely suck. Glenn
GK,
Except, Fresh Direct, mostly, doesn’t illegally take traffic lanes, while Amazon does all the time daily for hours all over just the UWS,
Witnessed this AM, NYC traffic cop ticketing Sysco restaurant supply truck parked in avenue standing zone and hydrant area for a few minutes to supply a restaurant.
Walked up the same avenue around noon, and of course Amazon is taking traffic lanes. No traffic cop in sight.
I guess Sysco is easier to pick on, and make quota (monthly tickets written goal) with than Amazon Logistics. Not as if the Sysco truck was going to be there for hours unloading. There was basically zero traffic on the avenue even though it was rush hour when I saw the ticketing of the Sysco truck, so the Sysco truck was not obstructing traffic.
If I were Sysco management, or a regular restaurant customer, I’d be furious at this gross hypocrisy by the City’s traffic enforcement division.
Is there anything the UWS doesn’t complain about?
I’ve lived on the UWS for 41 years and This community complains about EVERYTHING! EVERYTHING. More so now than in the 80s and 90s. These new millennial families want all the conveniences without any change. If you don’t like them using your spaces stop utilizes the services.
Since when is a private off street space that Fresh Direct is paying to use someone else’s space?
Major and frequent unloading of packages from large trucks on Columbus (east side) between 71 and 72 Streets has been taking place onto bike vans or arm-driven carts for use on sidewalks
I live on 78th Street. This business is NOT causing any real issues and yes is better than Fresh Direct or Amazon in its impact on the neighborhood.