Hunts Point was populated by the Wecquaesgeek, a Munsee-speaking band of Wappinger people, until English settlers[5] first arrived in 1663.

After Jessup died, his widow, Elizabeth, entrusted the land to Thomas Hunt Jr., her son in-law for whom the area is named.

William H. Fox, a descendant of the Quaker leader, and his wife Charlotte Leggett, owned much of the land that is now Hunts Point.

[7][8] Hunts Point's status as a home and vacation spot to the city's elite came to an abrupt end in the period following World War I.

As more people moved to the area, the city's business owners began to realize the advantages of locating to Hunts Point.

Among these advantages were the convenient access to the Tri-State region, the existing rail lines running through the Hunts Point area and the abundance of space available for the development of industrial and commercial activity.

Characterized by frequent arson and mass abandonment from the 1960s through the 1990s, this period marked a low point in the area's history.

[11] Living conditions became so difficult that almost 60,000 residents, approximately two-thirds of the population in Bronx Community District 2, left the neighborhood during the 1970s.

[15] Based on data from the 2010 United States Census, the population of Hunts Point and Longwood was 27,204, an increase of 2,062 (8.2%) from the 25,142 counted in 2000.

[20] In 2018, an estimated 29% of Hunts Point and Longwood residents lived in poverty, compared to 25% in all of the Bronx and 20% in all of New York City.

There is a small but dense residential pocket that occupies the high ground in the northern half of the peninsula along Hunts Point Avenue.

It consists primarily of older pre-war architecture apartment buildings with a smaller number of semi-detached multi-unit row houses.

[21][22] Hunts Point Riverside Park was spearheaded by Majora Carter in 2000, and after several iterations, won the 2009 Rudy Bruner Award for Excellence in Public Spaces.

It offers piers for fishing, sites for launching canoes and kayaks, and a floating swimming pool during the summer.

Below are some of the facilities that make up the Food Distribution Center in Hunts Point: The New York City Terminal Market carries fresh fruit and vegetables from 49 states and 55 foreign countries.

The market caters to the largest ethnically diverse region in the world with an estimated population that exceeds 15 million people (New York metropolitan area).

[26] In November 2001, shortly before leaving office, former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani broke ground for the new Fulton Fish Market building in Hunts Point.

Nearly four years after the structure was completed, which cost $85 million to build, 55 businesses moved into a 450,000-square-foot (42,000 m2) complex, located within the Hunts Point Food Distribution Center.

The facility generates an estimated $1 billion in yearly revenue, as it allows seafood distributors to store their goods in a temperature controlled warehouse with ease of access to NYC, New Jersey and Connecticut.

In announcing the closure, the Correctional Association of New York recognized that the facility had "a history of poor conditions and brutality against children.

There are several non-profits operating in this section of the South Bronx, most notably the Hunts Point Economic Development Corporation (HPEDC), Sustainable South Bronx (SSBx), THE POINT Community Development Corporation, Rocking the Boat, City Year, Legal Aid Society, Bronx Neighborhood Office, Mothers on the Move, Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice, Children's Bible Fellowship sponsored Revolution Church, Iridescent, the Hunts Point Alliance for Children, and South Bronx Overall Economic Development Corporation (SoBRO).

Prior to 2010, Per Scholas—a nonprofit that provides tuition-free technology training to unemployed or underemployed adults for careers as IT professionals—was also located in Hunts Point, within the American Bank Note building.

[54] During the 1980s, crime reached such a level that the Simpson Street building became known by the police as "Fort Apache", as was later immortalized in a 1981 movie named for it.

In 2008, a local news station released a two-part documentary on the life of several drug-addicted sex workers living on the streets of the neighborhood.

[17]: 14 The concentration of fine particulate matter, the deadliest type of air pollutant, in Hunts Point and Longwood is 0.0085 mg/m3 (8.5×10−9 oz/cu ft), more than the city average.

[63] Hunts Point and Longwood generally have a lower rate of college-educated residents than the rest of the city as of 2018[update].

[17]: 6  The percentage of Hunts Point and Longwood students excelling in math rose from 24% in 2000 to 26% in 2011, and reading achievement increased from 28% to 32% during the same time period.

[64] Hunts Point and Longwood's rate of elementary school student absenteeism is more than the rest of New York City.

[18]: 24 (PDF p. 55) [17]: 6  Additionally, 58% of high school students in Hunts Point and Longwood graduate on time, lower than the citywide average of 75%.