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It’s one of the Big Apple’s best kept secrets.
A tiny neighborhood in the North Bronx offers a handful of lucky New Yorkers an upscale and tranquil suburban lifestyle — with cut-rate city property tax bills.
About three dozen homes on a strip of land north of Pelham Bay Park get to send their kids to high-achieving Westchester County schools and live in suburban bliss, all while paying a fraction of the taxes their neighbors across the street pay.
“It’s an anomaly — no one is quite sure why it exists,” said James Rausse, who served as planning director for the Bronx Borough president for 17 years. “One would think it’s Pelham, but it’s actually part of the Bronx.
“You knew it was a weird place where all the politicians live,” Rausse said. “It’s the Bronx but you benefit from everything in Westchester. It’s an interesting setup they have up there.”
The dynamic is so bizarre that one million-dollar home on the north side of Elm Tree Lane is in Westchester and pays nearly $28,000 in property taxes, while another million-dollar home on the south side is officially in the Bronx and pays just over $9,000, property records show.
“It’s dead-ass quite,” a retired cop who lives on the block told The Post. “You’re backed up against the park, and if you stay here long enough you’ll see there are deer, and you’ll see turkeys.
“I mean, they walk a little different ’cause they’re Bronx turkeys,” he said. “You know, a little more attitude.”
The mysterious alignment dates to the 19th century, but it is unclear just why it happened.
According to a 1997 New York Times story, there are multiple theories — from a surveyor error to a planned road that never happened and left the land open for development.
But once the homes were built, children living on the city side of the neighborhood now found themselves separated from the borough by Pelham Bay Park, which prompted city leaders to sign a deal in 1948 to pay Pelham schools to educate kids on the block, the outlet said.
Traditionally, city judges and politicians who are required to live within city boundaries have found a comfortable compromise on the block, which is why outsiders tend to get a cold shoulder.
Few of the residents who spoke to The Post agreed to have their names published.
Yet, one mom on the block said there’s no stigma attached to living on Bronx side of the street.
“No one says, ‘Oh, you’re from the Bronx going to a Westchester school,'” she said. “I never got that from my kids.”
But living in no-man’s land has its downsides too, locals said.
Some said they still have to pay city income taxes, which offsets the break in property taxes, while others said getting city services to the remote outer edges of the Bronx can be a headache.
“When we first moved here there were fire engines in front of the house,” said resident Nick Loria, 70. “The [firefighter] had a paper map. And I came out and he said, ‘Where am I?’
“It’s a burden for the New York City Police Department and the fire department to come and service these houses,” he said. “And it’s a burden for Pelham Manor to service because they don’t get paid to do it.”
Additional reporting by Carl Campanile
English (US)