Reaping a Profit, With the City’s Help [New York]
Soon after Lovelynn Gwinn moved into her three-story town house in West Harlem six years ago, she received a call from the F.B.I. telling her that a woman had been thrown or had fallen from a nearby building. That wasn’t the only bad news about her new neighborhood. Rats ran rampant through her backyard and there were prostitutes and crack houses down the street.
But now, as the neighborhood has changed, at least in part because of her own efforts, Ms. Gwinn is getting her reward. She bought her newly renovated house on West 138th Street, just off Riverside Drive, for less than $250,000 through a city housing program. Now she has it on the market for $1.4 million.