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I am a young professional originally from Bklyn - my husband and I moved to White Plains a few years ago b/c of work, now living in Larchmont and looking for a place to buy- Boy is it tough!
We have searched all lower Westchester and we originally ruled out places such as New Rochelle and Yonkers b/c of bad reputations and poor schools but we recently broadened our search b/c of lack of properties in our price range and came across a property in Yonkers, in the Dunwoodie section, approx 1 mile to Bronxville. My question to you all - is it really that bad? I know that the schools are horrible but what about the neighborhood? Besides the schools it seems like a desirable place close to shopping and restaurants in nearby Bronxville as well as the new Ridge Hill mall - which I really like - Whole foods, Lord and Taylor - the shopping is great. Close proximity to the city - so please tell me why does Yonkers get such a bad rap??
Also, does anyone know of good private schools in the area - not parochial schools
I'd say it's pretty much the schools, which are hopeless given that a significant chunk of the city is poor and crime ridden. Once the school desegregation process started in the 80s a lot of the wealthier, white families moved elsewhere. I'd imagine given the demographics (middle class Italian and Irish), that the private school goers go to Catholic schools. A lot of the good non-parochial private schools cost >30k yr, so if you can afford that, you'd probably be afford to live in Bronxville, Tuckahoe or Eastchester which will have great or at least acceptable public schools without forgoing any of the amenities that you mentioned. There is also something to be said for being able to live in a community where the kids on your street all go to the same school, because arranging playdates around the county will be a headache for you and will be potentially socially isolating for the children. It sounds like you might not have kids yet, so there would be nothing wrong with living somewhere with crappy schools for 5-6 years and then moving to a better place, when you presumably have more money.
I think eastern Yonkers would be a good buy for someone without children, but the best private schools (hackley, masters, rye country day) will be expensive to the point of making it worthwhile to live somewhere nicer. Here's a list that you can peruse to see what I mean. If the tuition isn't listed, just google around and you'll find the cost. Westchester County Private Schools - New York/NY - Private School Review
As far as the neighborhood, you can get a really rough idea of the disparate environment between eastern and western Yonkers by looking at the sex offender map. //www.city-data.com/so/so-Yonkers-New-York.html
Another place to look if you go the private school in a cheaper town route, is in the Fleetwood area of Mount Vernon which is similarly close to Bronxville, but doesn't have the 1.5% income tax that Yonkers has. I've also heard that the elementary schools are decent there, so you could definitely save some money that way, and then switch towns or send your kids to private in 6th grade.
Thanks for the info mdm1 - I don't have children yet but will soon and if all goes well we can move up in like 6 -7 years. I've been doing some research and heard that you can go to bronxville schools while paying a tuition fee - has anyone heard of this? Wonder what the process is like and if there is a limit on how many out of district students the schools accept. This would keep us close by to potential school mates
It seems like eastern Yonkers is a good place to start for now given lower housing prices and taxes - the income tax is a deterrent though.
There is a limit, and you have to provide your own transportation I believe. This article says that it's 15k for elementary and 23k for middle and high school. That's better than the elite private schools, but still damn expensive, especially if you end up with more than one child. The more children you have, the more likely you should end up in a district where you utilize the public schools.
I'm currently living in a private house (which belongs to a friend of mine) in the Colonial Heights section of Yonkers, close to Bronxville and Tuckahoe. With no exaggeration, I'd say that I hear sirens (whether police or fire) here on a daily basis... sometimes a few times a day. I know that Yonkers is a large city, and the largest in Westchester, but with all of these sirens and fire trucks rushing around, I've got to wonder what the hell is burning down all the time? And I'm in one of the more desirable parts of the city, not down in the slums of SW Yonkers.
As mdm1 said, a large part of the bad rep that Yonkers gets has to do with the schools. There is also crime, mostly in SW Yonkers involving gangs and drug-related crimes. If you watch the local cable news channel (News 12 Westchester), whenever some news about Yonkers comes up it invariably seems to have to do with either crime or the city's budget woes. The city always seems to looking for more ways to squeeze money out of its residents. In a city that offers newbie firefighters with nothing more than a high school diploma and no experience a starting salary of $75,000, is it any wonder Yonkers never seems to have enough money?
Mdm1's suggestion about living in an area like east Yonkers for a few years and then moving somewhere more desirable later on is a good one. But IMO, if you don't really need to be living in Westchester because you've got a spectacular job here or have family that you can't bring yourself to leave, get the heck out of Westchester while you can and move somewhere with a more reasonable cost of living. Do you really want to live in a place where you have to pay 5 figure property tax bills (or darn close to it) to have a postage stamp sized piece of land just to be close to the so-called "greatest city in the world"?
Yonkers does have two excellent schools, however, so it's not the entire system that is under performing. Pearls Hawthorne and Yonkers High are magnet schools that are achievement-oriented, so if your child can get into the programs in those schools, the Yonkers school system would work out. Bronxville does accept non-resident students, but on a space available basis, and it's a very small number of students admitted to the school, so while it may be an option to consider, private schools are the likely educational institutions that would be utilized in Yonkers if you did not want to use the public school system.
Crestwood, Lawrence Park, Cedar Knolls, and Dunwoodie are good areas in the part of Yonkers you are considering. In fact, Lawrence Park, in particular is indistinguishable from neighboring Bronxville; and, because Sarah Lawrence is in the Bronxville P.O., many people incorrectly assume that it is part of the village. So, while there are problems in Yonkers, there are perfectly fine neighborhoods within the city as well, but the school system, as a result of the loss of a lawsuit when desegregation was mandated in the 1980s is the key detractor for Yonkers, especially for families.
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All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.
~William Shakespeare (As You Like It Act II, Scene VII)
There are parts of Yonkers that are nice but I find them to be rather expensive. I have friends who bought and Yonkers and send their kids to catholic school. One lives in a very nice residential area a few blocks from Jackson Ave and one lives in an area near McLean ave. Both areas are nice but both paid between 450,000 and 500,000 and pay 10-12,000 in taxes. For those prices plus tuition, I would go north to Mt Pleasant, Valhalla or Pleasantville and send to public schools. In Yonkers, it is not just the schools. They do not plow well at all. There are many days that my friends can not get to work because the plow does not come! There are also tons to town amenities you will not get as you have children (town pools, classes, etc.)
I also have a friend who is an apt in Yonkers and sends her daughter to the public schools for financial reasons. She went to Pearls and now is in the IB program and her daughter is very accomplished and is on her way to a top notch college. She is definitely the type of girl that can excel anywhere. You can get a very good education in Yonkers public if your child is bright enough to get into their magnet programs. I do have to say that there are many financial issues in Yonkers so my friend has not been happy with the many, many budget cuts through the years to art and music. Good luck with whatever you decide.
There are parts of Yonkers that are nice but I find them to be rather expensive. I have friends who bought and Yonkers and send their kids to catholic school. One lives in a very nice residential area a few blocks from Jackson Ave and one lives in an area near McLean ave. Both areas are nice but both paid between 450,000 and 500,000 and pay 10-12,000 in taxes. For those prices plus tuition, I would go north to Mt Pleasant, Valhalla or Pleasantville and send to public schools.
Exactly! Look at all the money it costs you to live in Yonkers. Paying 5 figure property tax bills and then having to send your kids to a private or parochial school makes no sense at all. If you're going to pay through the nose to support the public schools with your tax dollars, you may as well live in a community where you can actually send your kids to a good (and safe) public school.
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