On a skinny 250-foot strip of Elm Tree Lane, tucked just north of Pelham Bay Park, a few dozen Bronx homeowners are quietly pulling off one of the city’s strangest border tricks. Their houses sit firmly inside New York City limits, yet many of the people who live there shop, socialize and send their kids to Westchester schools, all while paying New York City property taxes. The result is a sliver of the Bronx that feels like Pelham Manor, with a tax bill out of a different ZIP code.
According to New York Post reporting on property records, a $1 million house on the Bronx side of Elm Tree Lane pays just over $9,000 a year in property taxes, while a comparable home on the Pelham side in Westchester pays nearly $28,000. The outlet also noted that some residents still file city income taxes, a quirk that in certain cases can chip away at any advantage for households with New York City wage-earners.
How a 19th-century line created ‘no-man’s land’
Local historians pin this odd setup on 19th-century park deals and boundary tweaks that left a slim ribbon of private property inside New York City instead of Westchester. As Historic Pelham documents, a legislative boundary adjustment in the 1890s produced an approximately 250-foot discrepancy that turned into privately owned parcels rather than parkland. Over the years, that strip picked up nicknames like “no-man’s land” and repeatedly dodged easy fixes.
Pelham Bay Park gives the strip a suburban feel
Pelham Bay Park, the city’s largest park, forms a broad green buffer between the Bronx and Westchester and helps explain why these homes feel more Pelham than Bronx. The layout and landscape of the park make the Elm Tree Lane enclave physically and culturally closer to Westchester, according to NYC Parks.
Neighbors and officials weigh in
People who live on the strip describe a suburban pace of life, with deer and even turkeys wandering through yards, while city officials focus on the nuts-and-bolts headaches. “It is a burden for the NYPD and the fire department to service these houses,” Nick Loria told New York Post, and former Bronx planning director James Rausse has called the alignment an anomaly rooted in early maps and statutes…