‘The city of gracious living’

There are pockets of Yonkers so tony and quaint, they are considered hidden gems. Not only are they situated on the doorstep of New York City, but they have well-crafted houses on sun-dappled streets with ample, manicured yards and neighbors who know your name. 

As the third largest city in New York state, Yonkers is many things. It is both urban and suburban. There”™s a solid middle class but there”™s also poverty. There”™s a nascent but burgeoning population of Manhattan-transplants and a waterfront (as transformed in areas as it is derelict in others) to match. Yonkers is an amalgam of ideas, styles and people, but a generally blue-collar ethos prevails.  

Then there are the neighborhoods that have earned Yonkers the name “the city of gracious living.” And the lifestyle these communities offer is highly sought after, an added boon to Yonkers”™ increasingly enticing housing market.

Take Crestwood, a hidden enclave between Central Park Avenue and the Bronx River Parkway where tree-lined streets, wide lawns and English-style roundabouts harken back to a small-town America hard to fathom in the metro area.

People are proud to be from here. Car magnets boast the neighborhood”™s exit number. Zillow has recognized it as one of the nation”™s most popular and sought-after communities. There are block parties and an active women”™s guild that sponsors things like backyard “pub-crawls.” A popular Facebook group keeps everyone in the loop, holding neighbors accountable if they act out of line. (Dog poop is a hot topic). There”™s also a well-utilized park with tennis courts and a clubhouse. Halloween is a Disneyesque extravaganza. Even New Rochelle painter Norman Rockwell, the master of nostalgic idealism himself, immortalized Crestwood”™s train station. 

Like in similar enclaves along the Bronx River Parkway, when people move in, they tend to stay. Generations of the same family buy up houses on adjacent blocks. 

“Families come back,” says Joe Houlihan of Houlihan & O”™Malley, a boutique real estate agency that services Bronxville and surrounding communities. 

And he should know. Houlihan himself grew up in Crestwood ”” on Chittenden Avenue near the picturesque little library ”” with nine siblings. His family lived in the same house for 50 years and his brother now lives a few blocks away. According to Houlihan & O”™Malley, the median price of single-family homes here has risen steadily over the years. In 2011, the price was $580,000. In 2020, it was $663,000 and year to date its $740,000. “That”™s an astronomical increase,” says Houlihan. (The highest sale price year to date was $1.2 million.)

In Yonkers in general, according to Zillow ”” the online real estate marketplace ”” the home value index has increased 38.3% from $439,000 in January 2012 to $607,000 in July 2021.

But other nearby neighborhoods are even more affluent. In the coveted adjacent Bronxville zip code (10708), the highest sale price year to date was $7 million, according to Houlihan & O”™Malley. In 2020, the median price in the 10708 was $775,000. Year to date it”™s $832,000. That”™s a 7.5% increase. 

The Bronxville post office area includes Lawrence Park West ”” not to be confused with Lawrence Park itself, a national historic district of stately, turn-of-the-20th-century homes for artists and writers developed in Bronxville by real estate mogul William Van Duzer Lawrence, founder of neighboring Sarah Lawrence College (Page 82). Lawrence Park West is near the college, NewYork-Presbyterian Lawrence Hospital and downtown Bronxville, although it has its own bustling little retail area. 

There are also micro-neighborhoods like Armour Villa and Longvale, all of which resemble the affluent Bronxville (even sharing that zip code). And it”™s the same in  Cedar Knolls, which lies next door. In all of these areas, unlike Bronxville village, properties sell for a fraction of the cost and taxes are much lower. There was no property tax increase in the past Yonkers budget. 

Farther up the Bronx River Parkway toward Scarsdale there”™s Colonial Heights and Beech Hill. The lots in these two neighborhoods are large and the houses spread out.

This eastern swath of Yonkers, near major highways and Tudor-style Metro-North train stations, is dotted with piquant hamlets that provide a walking quality people want, especially if they come from New York City. 

On the southwest side of Yonkers, there”™s Park Hill, developed as a getaway for the wealthy in the late 19th century and located on one of Yonkers many hills with views of the Hudson River. Here you”™ll find perfect-specimen period houses like turreted mansions and Victorian homes with incredible detail and views. Unlike in the east, Park Hill stands out for its jarring juxtaposition to the neighborhoods that lie at its base, illustrating Yonkers very real wealth gap (though poverty rates have declined from 17.5% in 2012 to 14.9% in 2019). The grandeur and detail of the homes here provide a particularly stark contrast with perhaps the poorest of Yonkers neighborhoods. 

But in all of these places, there is a lifestyle to be had that belies the perception of Yonkers as “not quite there yet.” And it doesn”™t end there. Throughout the rest of Yonkers, 9,100 new luxury multifamily units are either planned, completed, under construction or approved for development. And major national housing brands, like AvalonBay Communities and RXR Realty, are building here.

“I”™m very bullish about Yonkers,” says Houlihan. “I think that this very planned progress is happening and people are feeling better about it.” He”™s certainly seeing this in the neighborhoods north of Cross County Parkway in the east.

“We”™re experiencing very low inventory, especially under $1 million,” Houlihan adds. “If you”™re looking for a single-family (home) under $800,000, you can”™t find much. If I had a house under $1 million, I could sell it quickly.”

The solid influx of homebuyers and increase in bidding wars tells a story that”™s much different than the playwright Neil Simon would have us believe. It seems people aren”™t just getting “lost in Yonkers” anymore. They”™re seeking it out to stay and thrive.

Yonkers invests in affordable housing as well

Zoning requires affordable housing at new developments to ensure equity.

All of Yonkers”™ public housing units have been renovated over the last three years, a $500 million investment in more than 1,800 units.

The $74-million Point and Ravine project will feature 146 income-restricted apartments. The project is designed to transform a blighted, vacant block in the Warburton Ravine Urban Renewal Area into a sustainable, intergenerational community, with financial incentives from the Yonkers Industrial Development Agency (IDA).