At the end of a trees surrounded with trees, it stands in the Bronx, which looks like a red brick castle. But instead of royalties, the building with four floors of women from all over the world houses and wants to live comfortably (and cheap) in one of the last boarding homes for women in New York City.
Centro Maria, a guesthouse run by a group of Catholic nuns, houses 22 women in the building in Spuyten Duyvil, a neighborhood strewn with apartments and houses in Tudor style. The women who live there pay $ 210 a week for a bedroom or $ 190 for a shared room, making Centro Maria one of the cheapest places to live in NYC. (In the five districts there are no rental on the market for less than $ 1,250, According to Streeteasy.)
“We have the privilege of being here,” says Jeralene Maria, a student who moved from India to Centro Maria at the beginning of September.
The residents are privileged to more than one privilege; Centro Maria Almost closed in 2020 In the midst of the pandemic, while Catholic charities wanted to sell their original building in Hell’s Kitchen, the city reported. The sisters of Mary Immaculate had to find a temporary house in Mount Vernon until 2022, before they landed in the Red-Brick, Bronx building in 3103 Arlington Ave., said Sister Rita, one of the nuns that Centro Maria runs.
There are very few boarding homes left
The Arlington Avenue building has enabled the sisters to keep women from all over the world, making it one of the There are little left The boarding homes for women in NYC. In Manhattan you can only find a handful of left: St. Agnes Residence on the upper west side, St. Mary’s Residence of New York on the upper east side, and Saint Joseph’s immigrant house In Hell’s Kitchen. In the center of Brooklyn, the Webster -apartments (a former Hell’s Kitchen -Spot) still takes female boarders with you reopening This year.
This small harvest of boarding homes offer a ‘step’, for young women, of whom many of whom move to the US to study, work or even act, said the building Super at Saint Joseph’s immigrant house, who refused to give his name because he was not authorized to speak underground with Brick Underground.
The board homes for women used to be much more popular in NYC. From the 1860s, a group of rich Christian women in the middle class, NYC houses in the factory workers, seamstresses, shopping girls and other working women for a low cost with a single reserved. These stays came with strict rules for these unmarried women, including mandatory morning prayer, a bedtime of 10 p.m. and a ban on guests outside the salon, according to the New York Historical Society.
By 1891, the Young Women’s Christian Association of New York City had set up the first building, specifically for single -working women in what is now the Union Square district of NYC. (In classic New York fashion it is now one Hotel and private club.) Again, the guesthouse emphasized strict house rules that are intended to encourage the ‘moral character’ of tenants, according to the Historical society.
Nowadays, the few entry -level houses for women who remain a little less restrictive and much cheaper than the market for market speed of the city, making them a good option for some tenants.
Modern amenities, vintage prices
In Centro Maria is every room slightly decorated With a bed and desk, and the residents have access to laundry, a common cuisine and a reading room. Bathrooms can be shared or private, depending on the room.
The nuns – who of them are in the 90s – cook breakfast for the tenants every day, take the trash, clean the building and guest parties so that the women can get to know each other, said Sister Rita. (Brick Underground saw a karaoke machine in the dining room.)
“The atmosphere is known,” said Sister Rita. “We know each other. And we see it [the residents] In the dining room in the morning, because the sisters are the ones who prepare breakfast. ‘
The sisters also ensure that the residents return per evening clock. Residents must be back in Centro Maria at 11.30 pm from Monday to Thursday and Sunday, and midnight on Friday and Saturday, said Sister Rita. And those resident parties do not absorb alcohol, although Maria did not mind. (She also gave the breakfast praising reviews.)
“It’s like a family bond. The sisters are always there to check,” said Maria. “You are not lost because New York is a kind of lost place.”
Rules are still commonplace with other NYC koshuizen, but they are less restrictive than their predecessors from the 19th century, who limited the admission to women of “good moral character”, according to the New York Historical Society.
For example, the Webster Apartments, where the cheapest room now rents for $ 2,000, may have tenants Overnight guests With pre-approval. At Centro Maria the rooms are available for family members of the residents for $ 45 a day, said Sister Rita. But at Saint Joseph Immigrant Home there are no men allowed in the building other than family members, the super of the building said.
But if you are willing to live according to the rules, the boarding homes for women are often much more affordable than market cost apartments, especially in comparison with Manhattan, where the median rent found $ 4,600 per month for new lease contracts signed in August. And for Maria, the feeling of a community is to have her family in India priceless.
“We are together as a family under the care of the sisters,” said Maria. “Here you feel more protected, safe and in a house away from a house.”
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