1033 Madison Avenue

Murchison's design is classic 1920s Madison Avenue: a masonry tower built to last, with a generous base and a disciplined, symmetrical brick shaft. At 14 stories and only 20 apartments, the building averages well under two homes per floor, which translates into the layouts buyers prize here — formal entry galleries, gracious proportions, and the high ceilings of the era. Many residences retain their period detail: wood-burning fireplaces, tall windows, herringbone floors, and the formal gallery-and-dining-room arrangement that pre-war planning did better than anything built since. Upper-floor homes and the penthouse capture open light and, at the top, sightlines toward Central Park.

Because the building is so small, no two floor plans repeat in volume, and full-floor and near-full-floor configurations are part of the mix — the kind of scale that on Madison Avenue commands a premium of its own.

This is a full-service cooperative run for a small, settled ownership. A full-time doorman and concierge attend the lobby, a live-in resident manager oversees the building day to day, and private storage is available to residents. Pets are permitted. In-unit washer/dryers are allowed. The building permits financing up to 40% of the purchase price — a conservative posture typical of small, well-capitalized Upper East Side co-ops, and one prospective buyers should plan their financing around. A flip tax of 2.5% of the gross sale price is paid by the seller at closing. Guarantors are considered on a case-by-case basis. As at most cooperatives of this character, the board reviews purchasers through a full board package and interview, and pied-à-terre and investor use is limited — this is a primary-residence building.

With only 20 apartments, turnover at 1033 Madison is genuinely scarce — in a typical year the building may see one sale, sometimes none, and homes here are held for decades. When apartments do trade, they sell as large, light, full-detail pre-war residences on one of the most desirable corners in the city, and pricing reflects both the square footage and the address. Because inventory is so thin, a single well-positioned listing tends to set the building's benchmark for years. The most current closed-sale record for the cooperative is maintained on the building's sales page, which draws directly from public records.

Buying here means buying scarcity. Plan your financing to the building's 40% cap, budget for the seller-paid flip tax to be reflected in pricing, and expect a thorough board review oriented toward owner-occupants. The reward is a large, gracious pre-war home in a building of two dozen households, steps from the Met, the park, and the Madison Avenue retail and restaurant corridor. We help buyers read the financial statements, understand the board's posture, and benchmark pricing against the handful of comparable small co-ops nearby.

The story sells the apartment. The Emily Post provenance, the Murchison architecture, the historic-district setting, and the rarity of any availability are durable, marketable distinctions that separate a home here from the broader Upper East Side pre-war pool. With turnover this low, positioning matters enormously — pricing to the building's own benchmark and to the small set of true peers, presenting the period detail correctly, and reaching the narrow audience that wants a large, full-service co-op on this exact corner. We build that strategy around the building's history of held inventory and the premium the address commands.

If you're considering 1033 Madison Avenue, also evaluate these nearby pre-war cooperatives:

• 45 East 82nd Street — pre-war Upper East Side cooperative a few blocks north
• 1040 Fifth Avenue — Rosario Candela Fifth Avenue co-op facing the park
• 1035 Fifth Avenue — pre-war Fifth Avenue cooperative peer
• 17 East 80th Street — boutique pre-war co-op nearby
• 40 East 80th Street — full-service Upper East Side cooperative

The Roebling Team at Compass specializes in the Upper East Side, Madison and Fifth Avenue, and the broader pre-war cooperative market. We publish this profile because buyers and sellers evaluating a small, storied co-op like 1033 Madison deserve building-specific intelligence — the history, the board posture, the financing and flip-tax facts, and where pricing sits against the genuine peer set.

If you're considering a purchase or sale here, a 30-minute consultation is the right place to start.