Like many survivors of domestic violence, Maria (not her real name), put up with a lot before making the decision to leave.

She put up with her husband’s boozing. She took his yelling and verbal abuse. She tolerated how he kept her clueless and homebound to care for their small child, in a foreign country, with no family or friends to turn to for help.

But when he punched her in the face in front of their daughter, Maria knew it would only get worse. The next day, she took her daughter and left her husband.  

“I made a decision,” Maria said, in improving English. “It was not easy to just go and take your daughter away. I left everything behind. I never thought that he would do that. But my daughter shouldn’t see that [kind of violence].”

And now, after spending almost a year in various domestic violence shelters around New York City, Maria, whose real name is being withheld for her own protection, has found a new life and a new beginning in the northwest Bronx.

What she found was Marcello Manor, the newest and largest project of New Destiny, a nonprofit housing corporation that provides permanent housing and help for survivors of domestic violence.

New Destiny operates other buildings in the city, but Marcello Manor is its first in the Bronx and the first that provides full-time support staff. It’s also the nonprofit’s first building built using “green” or environmentally-friendly techniques and materials.

At a recent open house for media and funders, New Destiny officials proudly presented Marcello Manor as a new, stylish, permanent living situation for mostly single (and separated) mothers trying to make it on their own.

The building’s interior is stunning. Beautiful artwork and stylish furniture, all of it donated, make up a community room, which connects to a patio lined with tree and flower planters.

Half of the building’s 38 units are for domestic violence survivors like Maria who are looking for a way out of the shelter system. The other half are reserved for low-income community residents.

“The population is really a mix,” said Carol Corden, New Destiny’s executive director. “It makes it so that [the building] doesn’t stand out in the neighborhood.”

The neighborhood surrounding the Andrews Avenue building, considered northern University Heights (near the Major Deegan and Fordham Road), is welcoming their new neighbors with open arms, said Carlos Oliveras, a member of the Andrews Avenue Block Association.

Oliveras is most happy that New Destiny built the $10.5 million Marcello Manor structure on top of an ugly vacant lot.

“It’s really fabulous to have that rat-infested yard turned into something beautiful,” Oliveras said. “It adds to the quality of life around here.”

Greg Faulkner, the chairman of Community Board 7, also welcomed the new residents and pointed out that New Destiny, as a seemingly well-run supportive housing community, stood in contrast to other haphazard transitional housing programs that have recently come to the area.

The neighborhood has undergone somewhat of renaissance since last summer when residents felt the blatant drug dealing and youth violence was on the verge of spiraling out of control, Oliveras said. But residents came together and organized the Block Association and a series of events to bring people together.

The block may never be perfect, Oliveras said, but “a lot of good things have come out of [the association’s efforts].”

A couple of Marcello Manor residents, most of whom moved in last winter when the building opened, have already joined the Block Association, Oliveras said.

Getting acclimated with their neighborhood is just one of the many services provided by Josephine Melendez, the building’s full-time tenant support coordinator and jack-of-all-trades.

On any given day, Melendez helps residents with a variety of issues, like paying bills, finding places to shop, enrolling their kids in childcare and advocating for them at schools. Earlier this year, she helped parents get a Hunts Point charter school to start sending buses closer to Marcello Manor for pickups and drop-offs. “I get hugs for that every day,” she said.

She also helps residents with their “safety plan.” Many domestic violence survivors still live in fear of their abusers and must take every precaution to keep them out of their lives. Melendez alerted local police to the building’s residents and helps them set up court orders of protection and P.O. boxes to hide their addresses. “It’s a lifetime thing,” Melendez says.

One woman, who, like Maria, entered into a lottery for an apartment at Marcello Manor, said she takes different routes home every day, uses out-of-area doctors and doesn’t put her name on paperwork unless she absolutely must.

Melendez does what she can to help, she said, but New Destiny tells residents from the get-go, “We can’t ensure their safety.”

The safety issue is a constant reminder of where these women have come from and also of those who didn’t make it. There’s a reason Maria and others call themselves survivors.

“Those [victims] who died,” said Maria, crying softly, but emboldened, in her new two-bedroom apartment, “they couldn’t get away.”