The native inhabitants of this peninsula jutting into the East River called it Quinnahung, "the long high place". As at neighboring Clason Point, there was a large Indian settlement and burial ground here. Sale by the Native Americans in 1663 was followed by sparse development: only in the nineteenth century were the Legget and Hunt farms replaced by estates such as that of Col. Richard Hoe, inventor of the rotary press. The sections north of Hunts Point filled with apartment houses in the 1920s, as the new IRT lines made it possible for renters to move to the "East Bronx", bypassing the crowded neighborhoods of Mott Haven and Morrisania. Today, the industries of Hunts Point have been joined by New York's produce and meat markets, displaced from their old Manhattan locations.


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