When Mary Ann Ponti bought a loft "right in the thick of things" in Downtown Crossing six years ago, her friends were horrified. Cabdrivers questioned her requests to be dropped off there late at night. And she had to regularly remind police officers that people actually lived in a building across from where heroin dealers hung out.

Ponti said she fell in love with Downtown Crossing, which provides shopping steps from her front door and reminds her of New York City, where she lived for a decade.

"All I have to do is walk out my front door and there's something going on," she said.

Now her friends have changed their tune as the area around the intersection of Washington, Winter, and Summer streets is emerging as a neighborhood, not just a hangout for teenagers and shoppers. The community is already home to 6,000 people, and more are coming - Emerson College and Suffolk University are building new dorms, and 900 condo units are proposed or under construction, including high-end luxury units on top of the Filene's building.

This Saturday, Ponti's 1,100-square-foot loft, with shiny concrete floors and 9-foot ceilings, will be one of a dozen featured residences on a "Home Sweet Home" tour, a neighborhood open house organized by the Downtown Crossing Association and the homeowners who live there. Intended to promote the area's attraction as a residential neighborhood, the tour includes smaller buildings such as Ponti's, as well as marquee addresses such as the Ritz and the ultraluxe 45 Province now under construction.

The association's president, Rosemarie Sansone, said the home tour is a way to promote "one of the best kept secrets" in urban living.

"I thought this was an important aspect of the Downtown Crossing neighborhood that very few people knew about: that people actually live here," she said.

In many ways, Downtown Crossing is an ideal location - from here, you can get to most places in the city within a few minutes. It's the crossroads for MBTA lines. And Boston Common is steps away.

Downtown Crossing is perhaps best known to outsiders as the location of Filene's Basement, one of the city's biggest tourist attractions, which closed in September while the building is being renovated. The area has been a place that many people simply pass through - as many as 230,000 pedestrians course through the streets on a given day.

City officials and neighborhood proponents hope a dramatic face-lift will make the district even more appealing. The Boston Redevelopment Authority has poured money into a rebranding campaign. Emerson College is rebuilding the Paramount Theater as theatrical space, and the Filene's block is undergoing an ambitious renovation and expansion. Hotels and new retail are also on the way, Sansone said.

Ponti, a member of the association's board, said her building on Washington Street is now home to a handful of children, one of whom learned to ride her bike out front. Walking her Yorkshire terrier, Cannoli, she got to know everyone in the neighborhood, including the fruit vendors.

New restaurants are opening up. The streets are cleaner, and plants and attractive signage are going in.

"There's been progress," she said, "and there's going to be more progress."

Ted Chapin, an artist who owns an art gallery in Provincetown, bought in the same building around two years ago. He likes that the neighborhood is a public transportation hub and that he can walk in any direction for an evening out - Beacon Hill, Chinatown, and the Theatre District.

"There's really no other place in Boston that gives you that possibility," he said. "I live a pretty rich urban life."

While enthusiastic about the changes, Chapin acknowledged many of his friends "feel it's not quite there as a neighborhood." To the outsider, it still looks like a thoroughly commercial district, and lacks some of the conveniences that would round out its residential character, such as a grocery store.

John A. Keith, a real estate broker and author of the blog bostonreb.com, agreed that Downtown Crossing still comes up short. On a recent walk through the neighborhood, he saw "empty storefront after empty storefront."

"It always seems in flux," he said. "It always seems run-down."

Downtown Crossing may be the perfect neighborhood for students, Keith said - in the center of everything, but without the amenities other city dwellers require.

But William Ashmore, who opened the Ivy Restaurant on Temple Place and lives in the area as well, argued that Downtown Crossing has plenty to offer - so much so that he is planning to open a new restaurant this fall, Stoddard's Fine Food & Ale, across the street from the Ivy.

"We have everything right here," he said. "I literally do not leave Downtown Crossing."

The limited number of people living in the neighborhood adds to its appeal, he said. "There's so few residents that it becomes a pretty close-knit community," he said. "I know everybody who walks by. I even know the dogs."

And since he opened Ivy two years ago, the after-work crowd has grown, some of them neighborhood residents. "People are crying out for more restaurants and more options," he said.

Lynn Solomon, a professor at Tufts University School of Dental Medicine, decided to buy a two-story unit in the Lafayette Lofts on Kingston Street when she and her husband moved to Boston last year. She homed in on Downtown Crossing for its comparative affordability after moving here from Buffalo. Solomon, whose home is also featured on the tour, said she's looking forward to more people moving to the area.

"I hope there will be more of a sense of community," she said.

Chapin sees the tour as Downtown Crossing's "coming out party" as a residential neighborhood. "It isn't just to explain ourselves to the outside world," he said. "It's also to celebrate our life together. In the end, we're the residents and we get to enjoy this place."

Self-guided tours will be offered from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday. Advance tickets are available for $20 at downtowncrossing.org/homesweethome. On the day of the event, $25 tickets will be sold at 520 Washington St.

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