“When I first started doing walking tours in the 1970s,” the architectural historian Barry Lewis said, “there were two neighborhoods I wouldn’t go into: Hunts Point and Red Hook. They were peninsulas, and you couldn’t get out if a gang confronted you.”
Ms. Torres, who moved to the neighborhood to work at the Point, said the Longwood Historic District was right on the other side of the Bruckner Expressway from Manida Street. “This block probably should be landmarked,” she said.
The brick homes are a most unexpected gem in Hunts Point, a small peninsula separated from the rest of the South Bronx by the Bruckner Expressway. Properties there are mostly industrial buildings and low-income housing developments that in the last decades of the 20th century were plagued by arson and other problems.
There are about 40 of the homes, which were built around the turn of the last century, though the borough’s historians have not determined an exact date. Semidetached two-families, they were built in a Flemish architectural style that would have been familiar to the Bronx’s overwhelmingly Germanic population at the time.
Other longtime residents include Jeannette Johnson, the wife of the Big Band-era bandleader Buddy Johnson, and Cynthia Phillips and Orrin Hercules, who describe the block in the ’50s and ’60s as one of elegance and refinement, populated by doctors, lawyers and musicians. Ms. Phillips, who bought her 2,624-square-foot home for $17,000 in 1961, said some of them had been modified a bit.
Maria Torres bought her home in 2006, and said she knew of at least one person who bought a home on the 800 block of Manida Street more recently, hoping to restore it.
“Some of the owners made changes,” she explained. “The back entrance would be a bedroom in most of the houses, but the gentleman who owned my home prior to me made a kitchen at the back. Most of the homes have kitchens in the middle of the house.”
The homes may have been built by Henry Morgenthau Sr., a prolific Bronx real estate developer who also served as ambassador to the Ottoman Empire and was the grandfather of Robert M. Morgenthau , the longtime Manhattan district attorney. There is, however, no record of a direct tie to the elder Mr. Morgenthau, Mr. Ultan said.
Mr. Hercules said he installed wooden paneling and drop ceilings in his home in the 1970s. He is now removing those elements.
“The second-most-spoken language in the Bronx was German,” he said.
“We never sold our home,” Ms. Ross said. “When the Bronx was burning, people were running like it was the plague. I said, ‘No, I live in the Bronx, I work in the Bronx, the Bronx is my home.’ ”
Lloyd Ultan, the Bronx borough historian, agreed, though he said finding historical data about the 800 block of Manida Street had not been easy. At the time, the Bronx’s largest population was of German ancestry, Mr. The homes were built around 1900 on subdivided estate or farmland at a time when the suburbs of New York City were being developed to alleviate congestion. Ultan said.
Residents of the block have long known they had something special, and a number of them take extra pride in their homes. Cybeale Ross bought her 2,792-square-foot home in 1958 for $16,500; she has preserved the high ceilings, French doors, bay windows, Gothic arches and stained-glass skylight, though she did turn a dumbwaiter shaft into a closet. She calls the 800 block of Manida Street a “little oasis.”
That sense of danger notwithstanding, the two-story row houses endured, and Mr. Lewis was pleasantly surprised to stumble upon them one day while visiting a nearby community group called the Point Community Development Corporation .
At the online real estate marketplace Zillow.com , homes on Manida were valued as high as $533,000 at the residential real estate market’s height in late 2008. Now they are closer to $370,000.
Now, some residents of the block would like to ensure that the houses remain intact. They are thinking of seeking landmark status.
According to Sidney A. Miller, a director of the Haven Heights Group in the Bronx, a real estate brokerage, values in the 800 block of Manida Street can be widely divergent, depending on how much historic detail remains in the home, whether the basement is finished or whether there is a garage. (In general, homes on the west side of Manida have garages; those on the east side do not.)
“Around the corner was this lovely row of town houses, some of them beautifully restored,” he said. “You would think you were in Park Slope.”
“I guess at the time, people wanted to conserve heat,” he said. “But now I’m taking out the drop ceilings and paneling, and going back to the original walls, because these are beautiful structures. They all have French doors separating rooms, and upstairs have skylights, and there are patios in the back.”
Johnson City, TN Real Estate on Yahoo! Real Estate - Houses ...
Yahoo! Real Estate - Search Johnson City, TN real estate listings and houses for sale, find home values, housing market information, Tennessee mortgage rates & more
Johnson City TN REAL ESTATE, Homes for sale Johnson City TN ...
Let an expert Tennessee RealtorВ® help you throughout the real estate buying or selling process. The Johnson City area is a great place to live! ...
Johnson City Tennessee Real Estate, Johnson City Real Estate ...
Real Estate in the Johnson City, Tri Cities area, Marilyn Robertson Realtor
Johnson City Homes for Sale & Johnson City Real Estate - TN ...
Find the Johnson City, Tennessee Homes For Sale & Real Estate that you're looking for on homes.com. Search our website to locate your Homes For Sale ...
Other Real Estate in Johnson City, TN on Yahoo! Local
Other Real Estate in Johnson City, TN on Yahoo! Local Get Ratings & Reviews on Other Real Estate with Photos, Maps, Driving Directions and more.