The Real Deal New York

The South Bronx is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of the Bronx that includes the micro-neighborhoods of Mott Haven, Melrose, Port Morris, Hunts Point, Morrisania, and Highbridge. It is bounded to the north by the Cross-Bronx Expressway and its waterfront offers views of Manhattan. The South Bronx is known as the birthplace of hip-hop culture and was once a byword for urban decay and crime. The nadir experienced by the neighborhood in the 1970s cannot be overstated and makes its renaissance that much more dramatic than gentrification in other areas of New York City. A few decades ago, it made economic sense for landlords to set their own buildings on fire to collect insurance rather than maintain them and rent them out. Abandoned buildings attracted drug addicted and mentally ill squatters. Since the 2000s, rising real estate prices across the rest of New York City have prompted a trickle of artists and professionals to move to the South Bronx. Developers have followed and the neighborhoodÍs Grand Concourse thoroughfare from 153rd to 167th Streets has received designation as a historic district. The Morrisania micro-neighborhood in particular has played host to multiple condominium development projects since 2010. In 2015, Joseph Chetrit and Keith Rubenstein bought two South Bronx sites, 2401 Third Avenue and 101 Lincoln Avenue, for $58 million and plan to build six residential towers on the site. The Lower Grand Concourse Waterfront Project is a strip along the Harlem River that borough leaders said they hope will be developed into housing. The neighborhood is serviced by the New York City subway systemÍs 6 train, which takes riders down the east side of Manhattan, as well as the 2, 4, 5, B, and the D lines. -TA