Moving to the Bronx

In my opinion this is happening worldwide.(Maybe not in China! lol!) Maybe you also need to delve deeper into whether or not it is foreign and local property speculators who are driving up the prices and in some cases pricing out first home buyers. If 1st home buyers get priced out of the market then you have a generation of youth who are renters and not buyers. Not at all good for the soul of the nation. Does any government department keep a registar of how many properties big investors own? You could cause property values to rise to your advantage if you were a speculator who bought up big time and house banked with no tenants. Then sold when it was to your financial advantage - just like how investors play the share market.

Not mentioned in your article is the Van Cortlandt Village section of the northwest Bronx. It has tree-lined streets, many long-term residents, shopping,
a library, an express bus to Manhattan (BxM3) and is a stone's throw from the Bronx High School of Science and Lehman College. A typical one bedroom co-op is about $175k. There are also many rentals and single family homes
throughout the neighborhood.

Grew up in Riverdale in the '60s and early 70s. Loved every minute of it.

In my paean to Parkchester, the Bronx, I forgot to mention that every room , including the bathroom and kitchen had a window. Not many buildings, not even in Riverdale, can make that claim.

The article mentions that, "Ms. Blankley’s group is affiliated with an affordable housing portfolio, the New Settlement Apartments."
I wonder how and why an organization called Community Action for Safe Apartments is affiliated with a developer. The details of this could be interesting to explore.

This article might as well be a template.
My favorite line: "By 2014, the East Village 'had reached a tipping point, where gentrification was not fun anymore,' Ms. Vasiliu said."
Guess it's time to play musical chairs with some other group of people's lives--whoopee, what "fun"!

Dear NYTimes...

With all the breathless and never ending hype about Brooklyn, with the occasional article about Queens and now the Bronx for balance, does this mean that we can now retire the "bridge and tunnel" sobriquet for any NYC residents who reside outside Manhattan?

Well as the article pointed out - the borough is "shaking off" its dangerous image. But in reality it was just about the same level of Brooklyn. The Bronx is many times safer than it used to be - just like the rest of the city. In fact it's really only a little more dangerous than Brooklyn now. A little perspective though. If The Bronx was it's own city though - it would still be safer than just about any other major city. I mean DC is booming.... The Bronx has much lower rates of crime than DC. In 2014 it was actually safer than Boston.
That said - most of the neighborhoods listed in this piece are neighborhoods that never became violent. Throggs Neck - Woodlawn - City Island etc. You made the point correctly that they often resemble parts of Westchester County (which the borough was once part of). Had the school system been much better - the prices in those areas would have been even higher. Now that school systems in many suburbs face issues with funding and even violence - moving there can be less appealing...
That said - in the poorer areas of The Bronx - there is a need for a "little" gentrification. I mean the reality is certain stores won't move into an area if the income levels don't show enough income. That's just business sense. So I think it's a good thing that market rate developments are happening in Mott Haven/Port Morris. The people in the projects and in the "low income housing" can't be forced out. So they actually benefit.

I've living in the house my grandmother, then a widow, bought for her family when it was new in 1940. My grandson will be the 5th generation to occupy this house. I'm old enough to remember "The Beautiful Bronx" of the 50's, and watched with sadness as the heart of the borough was torn out by the Cross Bronx and Bruckner Expressways. Until they became adults, my kids thought that Robert Moses's last name was actually "may he rot in hell". We stuck it out because our neighborhood held up, as did most areas comprised of owner-occupied homes. I never thought I'd see "gentrification" come to The Bronx, but if it does, what I'd really like to see is for the once majestic Grand Concourse to experience a renaissance. Lordy, what beautiful Art Deco apartment houses you could find there ! Much too ritzy for the likes of us, and what a tragedy to see them fall into disrepair. Maybe their time has come again.

When i grew up in the South Bronx the truck farmers in the borough sold fresh fruit and vegetables from the back of their trucks. if you missed them you could go to the nearby greengrocers street where each little shop specialized in a vegetable or two. The truck farmers also came to your door to sell you eggs laid that morning. The little grocery sold slices of sweet slab butter from a huge slab in teh refriegerator. Of course tehre were barrels of pickels and ice cold sodas in big bins of frezing water. The street was always busy with various games, and we had a chalk art festival every summer. On our block the adults got out in the middle of the street to play music - classical, pop, ethnic - or recite poems. And we kids went hunting in the swamps of Throggs Neck. In multi-aged groups of kids we would go by sbuway the Metropolitan Museum of Art and walk across Central Park to the Museum of Natural History (free and no solicitation of a donation). At one time we knew where everything was located in the Met. And we had St. Mary's Park. it was so nice to live in an unfashionable place no one cared about. BTW, in visiting my old street and other streets on Google Maps I am impressed by the fine looking low income housing. i hope those streets remain open to poorer people.

Skipping the Bronx altogether (too inconvenient to my job in Midtown) and going to the last place yet to be gentrified --Mount Vernon in Westchester County just north of the Bronx. Similar feel to the north Bronx but without the taxes and only a 25 minute ride to Grand Central.

I was born and raised in the Bronx when parts of the borough were semi rural.
I would hop on my bike with my fishing pole or crab nets and come back with a feast.

My parents bought a house in the Bronx shortly after WWII for $12,000. They lived in it for SEVENTY years and sold it for $400K when they became way too old to maintain it.

There was a lot to do in the Bronx for fun and it was always easy to get to. Ice skating on Van Cortlandt Lake, feeding the elephants at the Bronx Zoo, the Whitestone Drive In, the Carvel on the corner of Eastchester and Williamsbridge Road, buying the Christmas Tree right from the box cars on Tremont Avenue near Unionport Road and walking Janet home, who lived in Clauson Point.

"Many of her neighbors have spent their whole lives in the area, which makes it feel less transient than other parts of the city, she said."

...she said, as the irony whooshed over her head.

I was born, raised, and reside in the Bronx. I attended the Bronx High School of Science. My grandfather, an immigrant from Jamaica, started his life in NYC as a real estate agent. His ex-wife and two children each owned their own homes in the Bronx.

I remember when moving to Mt Vernon and New Rochelle was the ultimate goal of many Bronx residents. Now younger people dream of buying their parents' home in the Bronx. Where else in NYC can you get a three-bedroom house with a finished basement, driveway, garden with elevated patio for less than $250K? Everyone wants a piece of NYC right now. The Bronx offers you the biggest chunk for the lowest price.

Having witnessed 9/11 and Hurricane Sandy, I am wary of living downtown. Here in the hills of the mainland, I feel safer. Basements get flooded less, too.

The Bronx was always a great place to live for people who grow up here-- no matter what generation. It's been one of the best kept secrets in NYC for a long time.

The Bronx is the only borough completely attached to the mainland of N. America (FWIW).

For open minded people who see it for what it is, the Bronx has a lot to offer. There is much more to the Bronx than affordable housing: 25% parkland, the New York Botanical Garden, the Bronx Zoo and much more. See for example the book The Bronx: The Ultimate Guide to New York City's Beautiful Borough by Lloyd Ultan and Shelley Olson. One thing we relish in the Bronx are safe communities barely mentioned in the media. No wonder people are beginning to rediscover the Bronx, slowly but surely.

The Bronx is NYC's hidden gem - the Zoo, the Botanical Garden, Wave Hill, City Island, MacArthur Avenue, Art Deco on the Concourse, etc.

I lived in Parkchester, the Bronx from 1983 to 2012. My family was there for much longer. As a fellow Parkchesterite said, "You can't beat it with a stick." Were Parkchester any place else, it would be recognized as the nirvana it is. Mature trees : sweet gum, black locust, honey locust, silver linden, pin oak, London plane with its bark of camouflage, towering American elms, flowering trees everywhere you look. Large parks in every quadrant, walking paths shaded by oak trees, benches circling huge swaths of grass, the Oval fountain to rival any in Versailles, the cornucopia of tulips every spring including one so rich in color as to be almost black. Transportation to take you to every corner of New York- an express bus right outside your door, the number 6 Lexington line, numerous bus lines. Walking distance to every amenity- the US Post Office, the NY Public Library, its very own cinema, ( Thank you to the renovator.) St. Raymond's church with its lighted crèche at Christmas, church bells sounding out the hour; diners where you can sit easily for an hour or more, friendly newspaper/candy stores where the owners know and greet you warmly, its very own bagel bakery - I never left for work before I had a bagel just out of the oven, dripping in real butter from Zaro's; easy access to all the bridges, fifteen minutes to LaGuardia airport; the only borough connected by land to the rest of the USA, home to the black squirrel. The huge drawback- absolutely no parking.

I'm always shocked at how much people spend on houses in New York City. $545k, for a good-sized but not extravagant house, in an up and coming but not yet the greatest neighborhood! And by New York standards that's a bargain!
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You guys live in a different world. Really, your city has more in common with Paris or London than with the rest of the US.

People toss around the word gentrification like it is a bad thing. If the working class gets stronger in The Bronx, the streets become safer and life happier, if not easier, then in my eyes, gentrification is a great thing!

Please stop comparing Brooklyn to the Bronx, which lacks what Millennials are looking for - charming neighborhoods lined with brownstones like Crown Heights, Fort Greene and Bed Stuy, hipster heavens like Willamsburgh, cool industrial areas like Bushwick, and most importantly, a convenient subway station.

Bronx property values will rise, buy they will not skyrocket because they lack some or all of these attributes. And nice and safe neighborhoods cited in this article such as Riverdale, Pelham Parkway, City Island and Country Club, are and will always be Millennial dead-zones.

The co op on Pelham Parkway looks to be 601 Pelham Parkway North. That was one of the top buildings in that area from day 1 and the builders name is on the outside. In its hey day Peham Parkway was the #2 neighborhood in The Bronx, second to Riverdale.

White Plains Road between Lydig and Pelham parkway was basically upscale mom & pop stores found no where in the Bronx except on Grand Concourse by Fordham road. May the memory of Snowflake Bake shop, Levine's Kosher Delicatessen, Advance Decorators, Wilma's, Martin Lewis, Fox's, Wendleys and the Brokerage house that was once there close to Six brothers be remembered fondly.

Let's not forget the Bronx Riviera: Orchard Beach

The key here is that while % is up, the nominal number is still very small. The Bronx is still an extreme bargain compared to the other boroughs. There are some very nice areas in the bourough totally undeveloped and not discovered by the gentrifiers. But access to Manhattan will always be an issue and will always make it "less than". But the timing is right to buy now.

3 years ago we sold our Duplex near Pelham parkway which we had called home for 5 years. The school system wasn't going to support our expectations and coming from suburbia we had to swim back upstream. However it was a wonderful experience and we recently went back with our 4 month old and saw (and hugged) our old neighbors. It was a bittersweet visit as the house we worked on for 5 years looks less kept up than when we left. Where else can you have a backyard and grow any vegetable and fruit without worry from animals? Better yet fresh figs and peaches from your elderly Italian and Peurto Rican neighbors? Trucks delivering boxes of tomatoes and wine grapes still canvas the neighborhood in the fall. We joke that our kids will grow up in Mayberry with all it's white washed lack of interest; however I certainly don't miss the stress of the city defending my driveway from parked cars. Today the only reason we go back is to visit our Butcher on Astor avenue for special occasions. Every weekend we'd walk 10 minutes to the botanical gardens and forget we were in the city. Today we're lodged in a tree lined suburbia but I hope my kids will have the chance to experience the city like I did, Bronx-style.

I no longer dream of returning to New York. I am 65 and accept that I will not be going home, to the Bronx.
About 5 years ago I was still actively thinking of returning to NYC. I saw co-ops for sale that were obviously identical, built at the same time in the 1930's, the same architect, the same builder. The exact same apartment in the Bronx, on the Grand Concourse near the court house, was for sale at about 165K was being sold in Washington Heights for 600K. No, there was no river views in either apartment. Both well maintained.
Knowing NY and the neighborhoods as I do I saw no difference in one being more desirable than the other, except that in the Bronx you had east side and west side subways plus newly developed shopping.
But move to the Bronx?
Ogden Nash did a terrible disservice to my home borough when he penned his famous poem that goes, in its entirety "The Bronx, no thonx"
Is a 100 zipcode worth hundreds of thousands of dollars?
You still can't get a 212 area code!

There goes the neighborhood.
Gentrification in the Bronx... Who would've thought?

As someone who was born and raised in the Bronx I find it regrettable that gentrification is taking place and will most likely price- out many of the long-time residents. The Bronx has always been a place where immigrants, whether, from eastern Europe, Italy, or Puerto Rico or Afro-Americans migrating from the south could find an affordable home.Like the Lower-East Side of Manhattan, or the Mission District in San Francisco, the government is not doing anything to stop the erosion of affordable housing

F

I still remember the days when people would never go to the Bronx, Brooklyn, or Manhattan north of the Upper West and East Sides. These places were too "dangerous," and besides, there was nothing to do there. Now all of a sudden, they're considered quaint (if by quaint you mean you were priced out of white-people-town). Why can't we acknowledge the humongous elephant in the room, which is that (white) people did not go to these formerly majority black and latino neighborhoods and now they do? First a few come to experience diversity or NYC as it used to be (a bit condescending and exotifying in my view - "oh my god I LOVE ethnic food!" - it's just food to us), and soon the neighborhood is all white and "boring," like the Lower East Side. Coincidentally, the lack of diversity and blandness coincide with the unbearable price of living in the neighborhood. So off they go to settle one of these formerly "scary" neighborhoods, and finally bring civilization to the masses in the form of artisanal cupcake boutiques and eventually, a Whole Foods. Yay! (Not).

To Mr. Segalla and nearly everyone else who cannot seem to promote the Bronx for its own unique character, instead resorting to comparing the borough to Brooklyn:

It is patronizing for the public to allude to the Bronx's improvement and growing appeal, at the expense of its own identity, which is discounted when we are likened to another borough or another place all the same.
More importantly, a borough like Brooklyn, which in surrendering entirely to market forces and the commodification of its character, has increasingly sacrificed its people, its environment and its culture. This comparison may have initially implied revitalization efforts, but now is little more than the equivalent for rapid gentrification.

Us Bronxites would like you all to stop presenting us as the "new Brooklyn." As a matter of fact, You should all refrain from announcing that any place is like Brooklyn. Brooklyn itself has historically not resembled the image that it now projects, much less an entirely different borough like the Bronx. The Bronx has never been like Brooklyn and will hopefully never be like Brooklyn.

HIghbridge, Highbridge, Highbridge. I grew up there and miss it 50 years after moving out as a teenager (I had no say in the matter..). Two great subway lines within walking distance, the #4 and the D. Spacious apartments. Yankee Stadium, river views. My family lived in the same building for 40 years, my mother in the same apartment for 35. It was a neighborhood with everything you needed on the same thoroughfare, Ogden Avenue. I would love to see it bloom again for new generations.

Parkchester doesn't resemble Stuyvesant Town; Stuy Town resembles Parkchester, as Parkchester was built in 1940 and Stuy Town, a miniature replica of Parkchester, was built in 1948.

We've finally stopped saying 'the' Ukraine and 'the' Seychelles. We never said 'the' Paris, 'the' London, or 'the' Manhattan. Why do we keep saying "the" Bronx?

When I visited my old neighborhood in the Country Club section of the Bronx I was encouraged at the way the place was holding up and even improving as a good place to live. When are the utility companies going to remove all those unused wires from the poles!

Plenty of nice neighborhoods in the east Bronx like Morris Park.

I lived in the Bronx from 1956 to 1976. Although I'm amazed and encouraged by the sales picture described in this article, I left the Bronx long ago to escape crime and desperation. I've often thought about buying a property in one of my old neighborhoods, to use as a pied a terre for Manhattan culture (and Yankees games). But what is the real crime situation? Your article doesn't touch the subject,

So it only took forever for others to find out what native New Yorkers have known for years.

Please leave your hipster hats, food trucks, locavore food ,and other assorted detritus in Brooklyn.