I had the privilege of growing up on a farm and am now a mechanical engineer.

My day job is as a sales engineer for a company that designs and builds custom-engineered material handling equipment for manufacturers.

If you've worked with any good mortgage lenders (conventional financing), home inspectors, structural engineers, real estate attorneys, and/or contractors in or around the South Bronx area that you'd recommend, we'd love to hear from you! 

I am a trained Civil Engineer and GC my own projects.

We got a structural engineer to estimate the extent of the damage and then a basement contractor to bid the job.  

Maybe look into a project engineer position with a large general contractor in the special projects (smaller sized projects) division.

I know you said you were having trouble getting clear numbers from contractors, but I would definitely recommend getting a structural engineer or foundation repair specialist to check that out to get a cost estimate.

I'm a real estate newbie, but I've got a lot of applicable skills from 13 years in start-ups, running businesses, a Kellogg MBA, masters of engineering in design thinking / innovation, etc.

I'm an trained nuclear mechanic and dropped out of my civil engineering degree during my senior design project to begin investing. 

What I've done is "reverse engineer" the BP calculators and create my own spreadsheets that incorporate specific items I felt the calculators were missing (minor details and region specific items).