The article misses two key areas: the West Farms Soldiers Cemetery, which houses the remains of approx 40 soldiers dating back to the War of 1812; and the Bronx River Art Center, which provides arts education to the community.
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Here comes the NYT real estate section looking to introduce a working class lower income neighborhood to greedy developers and hungry transient renters to new and inexpensive rents (to the professional Manhattan working class). Goodbye West Farms, Hello So-Zoo or South of the Bronx Zoo......
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"And Ms. Panton, a nurse’s aide in Harlem who was renting a cramped one-bedroom with her two sons in the Morrisania neighborhood" — There is no "Morrisania" in Harlem. Morrisania is in the South Bronx, named after the estate of Gouverneur Morris.
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You're misreading. She worked in Harlem, lived in Morrisania.
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Everybody needs a nice home and a good school! Why does Park slope or the Uppereastside have better services ?
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The Bronx is the last frontier of new apartment construction. There's are fewer and fewer areas left in NYC to build near subway lines where the zoning permits it. Soon we'll see more market rate apartments in West farms and other previously undesirable neighborhoods.
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I agree completely. A private developer could quickly lease modern, doorman buildings in the Bronx in the $1000 (for studio) to $2000 (for 2-bedroom) range. The immediate surroundings wouldn’t be as pretty or quiet as Riverdale but most areas of the Bronx have better subway access anyway. This could be a big value-oriented play: nice building, nice units, everything people really want or need but nothing too fancy, reasonably priced, no broker’s fees.
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There's the disconnect. You think that $2,000 per month is a reasonable rent? The median income per household in West Farms is a little over $23K, while the average median household income for the NYC as a whole is around $50K. The rents you see as reasonable would push out current residents as landlords catered to the slightly more affluent who are now priced out of everywhere else. It punishes all the local residents who've suffered through the worst times of the Bronx's Fort Apache days by pushing them out now that things are turning around. Private developers are not going to turn around the housing problems in this city. They are largely the cause of it.
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