Living Along - Grand Concourse, the Bronx - Living Along the Grand Concourse - NYTimes.com IN the early 20th century, the Grand Concourse was a stylish address for successful immigrants and first-generation Americans who could afford to move up from areas like the Lower East Side. "My grandparents always wanted to live on the Grand Concourse," said Andrew S. Dolkart, the director of Columbia University's Historic Preservation Program. They did eventually. Their apartment on the Grand Concourse was smaller than their other apartment, but it had the prestige of the address. Over the course of the century, the glamour dissipated. The Bronx was burning, and while the Concourse itself was spared much of the destruction and abandonment seen throughout the borough, its sparkle was lost. In the last 10 or 20 years, however, things have started to turn around. "Just as the city of New York has rebounded," said Sam Goodman, an urban planner at the Bronx borough president's office and a resident of the Grand Concourse, "the Bronx has improved as well." The Grand Concourse is celebrating its 100th anniversary, and its lovely stockpile of prewar housing is being rediscovered. Their survival is a happy accident, said Robert B. Tierney, the chairman of the Landmarks Preservation Commission. "When neighborhoods go through hard times," he said, "sometimes it results in the historic fabric not being torn down for high rises." The "Art Deco, Art Moderne style apartment houses are so amazing up there," he said, and many of the interiors have sunken living rooms and prewar details. The neighborhood is an easy commute to Manhattan, and apartments tend to sell for much less than comparable spaces in other parts of the city. And in recent years, people have started to notice. "They're looking for value," Ariela Heilman, the president of Ariela Heilman Real Estate and an apartment owner in the South Bronx, said of her new neighbors. They're not looking for the name of the street. When Katja Shamburger decided it was time to buy an apartment five years ago, she moved to the South Bronx to take advantage of the low prices. When she wanted to upgrade, she chose to stay in the area - and ended up on the Grand Concourse. This summer, she paid $280,000 for a three-bedroom apartment with a balcony at 1020 Grand Concourse, a doorman building called Executive Towers. From her apartment, she has views of Manhattan, Yankee Stadium, and beautiful sunsets. She also has the privacy of her own bathroom. "I have two children and everybody has their space," she said. I'm not going anywhere anytime soon. The Grand Concourse begins at 138th Street and stretches four and a half miles up to Mosholu Parkway, through four of the Bronx's 12 community districts, and through parts of High Bridge and other neighborhoods. A bus ride reveals four fairly distinct portions. The southernmost end was historically an industrial area. Rezoning to make way for residential development occurred only this past summer. The second phase begins around 153rd Street, where apartment buildings start appearing. From that point, the road remains residential through its northern tip, aside from commercial space around Fordham Road and some storefronts here and there. Within that zone, around Yankee Stadium at 161st Street, are some of the Concourse's most glamorous ghosts and contemporary attractions. The Bronx County Courthouse, an imposing white building with gold flourishes, sits across the street from Joyce Kilmer Park. Catercorner from the courthouse is the old Concourse Plaza Hotel, where the Yankees were said to spend game nights. It is now a home for the elderly. The patch around the stadium, from about 153rd to 167th, has a number of the boulevard's trademark Deco buildings: the western Bronx has one of the largest collections of such buildings in the country. The Preservation Commission is considering this strip as a possible historic district, Mr. Tierney said. Although many people associate living on the Grand Concourse with living in an Art Deco building, simple five- and six-story brick structures actually make up the bulk of the housing stock. According to Mr. Tierney, north of 167th Street the concentration of simple walk-up buildings becomes stronger. It is around 167th that the third zone starts and the feeling shifts again. "There's no sense in trying to camouflage it," said Mr. Goodman at the borough president's office. Between 167th Street and Fordham Road are places that could use a lot of love. This section was hit the hardest by the blight suffered generally in the Bronx. Today, it has the fewest owner-occupied buildings and faces the longest journey back to economic stability. "The South Bronx in the second half of the 20th century was a rough place to live," Mr. Goodman said. About two miles north of 167th, around the Kingsbridge subway stop, the Concourse mellows out. While other stretches saw trouble over the last 50 years, stability prevailed in this fourth portion, near the Montefiore Medical Center and Poe Park, a patch of grass and a little white cottage that was once home to Edgar Allan Poe. But even in areas that never drastically declined, the image that infected the Bronx in the "80s has held on.