In a city where many people would kill for a 212 area code or a Fifth Avenue address, one woman would take The Bronx over Manhattan any day.
Vitalina Montesano lives in Manhattan, even though her Marble Hill neighborhood lies on the land mass everyone calls The Bronx.
But when she toppled down the stairs of her housing project in 2005, her lawyer decided to challenge that jurisdictional anomaly by filing her suit against the city Housing Authority in The Bronx – where juries are notoriously more sympathetic to plaintiffs and prone to award big settlements.
The Housing Authority then filed for a change-of-venue motion, saying that the case should be heard in Manhattan with its stingier jury pool.
Her lawyer argued that since Montesano has a 718 area code, a Bronx ZIP code and her children went to public schools in The Bronx, her place of residence is – for all intents and purposes – The Bronx.
“If you send a letter to my client, it goes to Bronx, NY. If you call her, it is a 718 number,” lawyer Ben Robinson told The Post. “It’s a very unique situation.”
Originally, Marble Hill was part of the island of Manhattan – cut off from The Bronx by the Spuyten Duyvil Creek.
But in 1895, the city dredged out marshland to the south of the neighborhood to connect the Harlem River with the Hudson. Later, the creek was filled in, and Marble Hill was made contiguous with The Bronx. When a lower court decided to allow the case to be heard in The Bronx, the Housing Authority appealed. On Tuesday, the state Appellate Division apologetically overturned the decision.
“That the 52 acres of realty known as Marble Hill are, legally speaking, part of New York County in no way dims the luster of its neighbor to the north, the borough of universities, home of the Grand Concourse and the New York Yankees,” wrote Justice Joseph Sullivan, who was born and raised in The Bronx.
Montesano was saddened to learn that she is, indeed, a Manhattan resident.
“But everything I have and everything that I do is in The Bronx. I don’t understand what is going on,” she said. Robinson said his client would press on in court – albeit in Manhattan.
Additional reporting by Douglas Montero