Four Bronx apartment buildings considered among the city's worst have undergone a transformation, changing the lives of residents in the process. NY1's Erin Clarke got an exclsuive first look and filed the following report.
Lizbel Moronta describes living at 2239 Creston Avenue five years ago as a "horror movie."
She and the other tenants like Francis Almonte were surrounded by squalor - doors off hinges, broken windows, crumbling ceilings.
"Really dirty. Really ugly and dangerous," Almonte recalled.
"Illegal things. Pit bulls loose on the stairs, a lot of people coming in and out of the building," Moronta added.
The building was among four on the avenue that together had more than a thousand violations, spiraling into disrepair after their owner defaulted on the mortgages.
"These buildings are old. They break on a regular basis, stairs, lighting fixtures, windows, regular wear and tear of an apartment building. As they fail and you don't keep them up, the next problem is always worse than the last one," said John Crotty, Vice President of the WorkForce Housing Group.
The city Department of Housing Preservation and Development took them over four years ago, making $40,000 in emergency repairs.
"We take 200 of the worst buildings in the city into the program each year and pay for the renovations ourselves try to bring them up to basic safety," said HPD Commissioner Vicki Been.
An affordable housing developer bought the properties at auction and rehabbed them with $29 million in city and private funding.
Today the four buildings with 121 apartments look completely different.
"The bathroom everything, tiles floors, new everything. Really like the way that it is now," said Yomayra Soto, a building tenant.
Residents also say since the renovations have been made, they've seen a change in the neighborhood too.
"I feel safe and most importantly, like our surroundings, the neighborhood, everything it's just different," Moronta said.
"I don't hear the shouting, screaming, a lot of people outside type of thing and strange people coming inside the building and stuff like that. We don't see that anymore," Soto noted.
While the work began under Mayor Michael Bloomberg, HPD was eager to show the final results.
The agency will need to do many more rehabs to meet Mayor de Blasio's goal of building and preserving 200,000 units of affordable housing.