157th St. and Riverside Dr.: This under-the-radar NYC 'hood is making a comeback

When I tell people I'm heading to 157th St., they look at me like I'm pushing this real estate beat too far.

 

"What are you writing about up there?" they ask. "I could never live there," they say.

 

Of course, these backseat-neighborhood New Yorkers have never stepped a square foot near "there."

 

Like other rediscovered corners, streets and neighborhoods, 157th St. and Riverside Dr. has received attention lately from value-conscious home hunters looking for large apartments.

 

Unlike rediscovered areas, though, this neighborhood of prewar co-ops and townhouses on hilly windy streets gets my vote for the most attractive. Once you exit the 1 train at Broadway and 157th St. and head away from the fried-chicken shops and phone card stores toward the Hudson River, history comes alive in this neighborhood of curved buildings sporting faux turrets and a Greek revival university square housing the Hispanic Society and the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

 

Also - and this is rare - no one wants to keep this neighborhood a secret. Residents, politicians and real estate agents all want people to know just how livable this southwest Washington Heights neighborhood can be.

 

Like everywhere else, it has problems. Residents complain about the lack of supermarkets, butchers and banks, how there's no caf‚ and poor retail. Homebuyers have even looked elsewhere because of weak services.

 

But on a sunny day, walking toward the parklike oval linking Riverside Dr. with the Hudson River, heading toward Trinity Cemetery to rest on a park bench by Renaissance Revival buildings, this is as good a spot as any to watch life unfold in a peaceful quarter of New York City.

 

History: Recently declared a historic district by the New York City Landmark Preservation Commission, Audubon Terrace (155th St. to 158th St. around Riverside Dr.) dates back to 1841, when bird expert John James Audubon bought farmland overlooking the Hudson River. While Audubon's 20-acre estate and house are gone, the area's elevation made it ideal for development, as turn-of-the-century builders lured upper-middle-class lawyers and doctors seeking Park Ave. lifestyles in slightly greener pastures.

 

The apartments were three- and four-bedroom homes with mahogany-lined dining areas and servants' quarters with private baths. The lobbies were filled with limestone, brass and marble.

 

"This neighborhood was as affluent as any in the early 20th century," said Robert Snyder, head of the American Studies department at Rutgers University and author of a coming book on Washington Heights. "It was as favorable a place to live as Central Park West."

 

The neighborhood's prominence waned after the Depression, but buildings like the Grinnell at 800 Riverside Dr. and the Riviera at 790 Riverside Dr. drew people looking for spacious homes. In the 1960s, African-Americans moving from Central Harlem or the South relocated families to these big apartments. After a crack epidemic tattooed the neighborhood as dangerous in the mid-1980s, it recovered through joint efforts by local residents, police and politicians.

 

"The city had a tremendous victory over crack and crime in the southern part of Washington Heights," said Snyder. "It would be a shame if real estate conditions and high prices ruin that victory by taking away housing from the people who stuck it out through tough times."

 

The good neighbor: Vivian Ducat, a new media specialist and agent with Ariela Heilman Real Estate, lives in a classic six apartment with three-exposure views at 790 Riverside Dr. When she and her husband first looked at the neighborhood in 1992, he thought it was too rough around the edges for a young family. But having grown up on the upper West Side in the 1960s, Ducat never forgot the area around 157th St.

 

When she saw the three-bedroom apartment with a dining and maid's room for $650,000 in 2003, she jumped. Working with the Riverside Oval Asoociation, she's organized her neighbors to improve a Broadway median called Payan Park and spurred the potential opening of the oval, the small park in front of her building.

 

"I was never an activist before," said Ducat, who recently sold a three-bedroom condo around the corner from her house for $835,000. "When I came here, I thought this was such a great place, but people were passive. You always think someone else will do something. I decided to do it myself."

 

In addition to organizing oral history discussions in local buildings, Ducat works with local institutions to improve their Web presence. Through public and private grants, she's raising money to run taped walking tours on the neighborhood and has funded 20 local tree guards.

 

For sale and rent: According to Streeteasy.com, 11 apartments are for sale at 790 Riverside Dr. In addition to a four-bedroom, three-bath on the market for $1.695 million, there are two-bedrooms for $479,000 and $589,000. Rentals in the area hover around $1,350 for a one-bedroom and $2,500 for a two-bedroom.

 

"We haven't seen significant price drops that other areas have," says Corcoran broker Bruce Robertson, who lives in the Grinnell and has several listings in the neighborhood. "There's not a lot of stress living up here." Halstead Property lists a burned-out townhouse on W. 158th St. for $795,000.

 

The old guard: Just walk the area around the oval and you'll get opinions on where the neighborhood has been and where it's going. Retired social workers Donald Bennett and Maryjane Terrell, neighbors for more than three decades, have watched the area change.

 

"The hardest thing now is getting the new people to say good morning in the elevator," said Bennett, who jokes about the names the neighborhood has had over the years. "The name changes, depending on how much crime there is. When it's high crime, we're Washington Heights. When it's low, we're Harlem."

 

"We're Audubon Trail or Audubon something now," said Terrell, referring to the historic district designation that will draw affluent homebuyers. "It's so nice here that no one moves much."

 

Mary Louise Williams has lived around the Oval on and off since 1961. She lives in a federally subsidized rental building at 156-20 Riverside Dr. with jazz trombonist Mike Grey. Her 15th-floor apartment has views of the Hudson River, Empire State Building and western Manhattan.

 

"For me, it was never about the neighborhood," she said. "It's the buildings. I like the views."

 

The Broadway divide: Perhaps nowhere in New York is the distinction between the tranquility of the Oval and the chaos of Broadway so apparent. Similar to Inwood and Hudson Heights, east of Broadway is working class. Politicians know this. Manhattan Borough President Scott M. Stringer is driving a "Take Me to the River" campaign that will open up and improve the streetscapes from 145th to 157th Sts., providing access to Riverside Park.

 

"People don't realize that a major strength of this neighborhood is as a waterfront community," says Stringer, walking the area with Anthony Borelli, his director of land use, and Paimaan Lodhi, urban planner for Washington Heights. "There's a park here, and some people don't even know it. Our hope is one day these streets are as pretty as the West Village or Tribeca."

 

My verdict: Something consistently drew me back to this neighborhood. Whether it was the storytellers on the oval's park benches, the curvy streets and architecture that curved with it, the Hudson River, the 38-minute train ride from 34th St., or the $2 rice and beans on Broadway, I kept coming back. It's a New York treasure.