1080 Madison Avenue (The Residence on Madison)

The building occupies a fifty-one-foot Madison Avenue frontage on a shallow 4,893-square-foot lot, which is what produces the two-apartment floor plate. There is no third line and no interior unit; every residence in the stack has avenue or rear exposure, and the elevator landings serve two doors.

The A and B lines run from the second floor to the eighteenth, with no thirteenth floor, above which sit a residence numbered 19 and a penthouse. Listing records describe the penthouse level as a multi-level home with a long terrace and open views over the low-rise blocks around it — a rare condition on this avenue, where the neighboring pre-war stock builds to a consistent cornice line.

Combinations have reshaped the building over four decades. City and filing records show a two-apartment combination in 2003, a combination requiring a new interior stair in 2009, a duplex spanning the seventeenth and eighteenth floors renovated in 2010, and a sixteenth-to-seventeenth-floor combination in 2013. One unit lot is now carried under the designation 4B5AB — one home built out of three original apartments. The practical consequence for a buyer is that this building has no single representative floor plan. Two apartments on adjacent floors can be entirely different homes, and per-square-foot analysis has to be run line by line.

The commercial unit at the base, addressed 1078 Madison Avenue, is not part of the residential ownership. It is a separate condominium unit in class 4, sold out of the building's original ownership chain in 2004, and it has operated as personal-care retail through filings in 2004, 2015 and 2019. Separate ownership does not by itself settle what say the residential board has over retail leasing, use or transfer; the declaration and by-laws do, and no offering plan was located, so request them.

The Residence on Madison runs as a full-service condominium: attended lobby with 24-hour door and concierge coverage, a live-in resident manager, a common garden, and a laundry room. There is no amenity program beyond that, which is normal and appropriate for a building of this size on this avenue — the operating budget goes into staff and the building envelope rather than into fitness and lounge space.

The envelope is where the filing history concentrates. Department of Buildings records carry filings for façade repair work in 2000 and 2007, brick veneer replacement in 2007, concrete façade repair with masonry veneer reconstruction and temporary shoring in 2010, terrace-level pipe scaffolding in 2010 and 2011, a new gas boiler in 2008 and a boiler replacement in 2014, a cooling tower replacement in 2003, a full lobby renovation in 2008, and east-elevation limestone panel repair and replacement with a sidewalk shed in 2015. Filings do not confirm completion or current condition. A limestone-clad building of this vintage will keep spending on its panels. Any buyer should ask for the current FISP cycle status, the most recent engineer's report, the reserve position, and whether an assessment is contemplated or has recently concluded.

The small J-51 benefit that appears in the historical Department of Finance file — initiated in 2011–2012 and recorded with a fourteen-year term against six unit lots — is consistent with a capital improvement of this kind. The amounts were small and no J-51 entry appears on the current rolls; the file documents past capital work, not the building's current condition or any remaining benefit, which a unit's tax bill would show.

Ownership form: Condominium, confirmed structurally. Purchases pass through the board of managers' right of first refusal rather than a cooperative approval, which produces materially faster and more predictable closings than the neighboring co-ops.

Pets, pied-à-terre, subletting, LLC and trust ownership, minimum down payment, flip tax: Not documented in public records, and no offering plan for this building was located in either library. Condominium form makes the standard flexibilities likely, but likely is not a term of contract. Obtain the by-laws, the house rules and the current policy sheet from the managing agent before you rely on any of it.

Real estate taxes: The roll shows no exemption available to a private purchaser. Check the specific unit's current bill for any abatement and underwrite taxes against it.

Landmarks: No Certificate of Appropriateness required. Window replacement, terrace work and façade alterations here are governed by the by-laws and the Building Code, not by the Landmarks Preservation Commission.

Recent sales

Recent closings at this building, from The Roebling Research Library. Prices are the transfer amounts recorded with the NYC Department of Finance; apartment-level detail is checked against the building’s own file in The Roebling Research Library before publishing.

Market read. Most recent trades (2025) cleared a median $1,733/sf (floor-adjusted) across 4 sales. Floor-adjusted means each sale is restated to a constant mix of floors, so the figure can differ from the plain median of the sales listed above. Median listing discount 4.5% from the last ask — a recurring negotiation gap worth pricing into any offer or listing strategy.

Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 1-01493-7501; each condominium apartment is its own tax lot). Apartment-level facts (line, condition, asking-price context) curated and cross-verified in The Roebling Research Library. Not all transactions cross-verify with ACRIS records — sponsor and LLC purchases sometimes record at stipulated values rather than market price; square footage from recorded condo declarations and offering plans.

The tenure is real, and you should still verify it on your own deal. The Department of Finance class, the separately assessed unit lots and the recorded deeds all confirm condominium form here. On Madison Avenue generally, do not take tenure from marketing — check the tax lot structure and the transfer type.

Do not rely on the fifteen-story figure in city data. The recorded unit schedule reaches an eighteenth floor, a nineteenth-floor residence and a penthouse, and most DOB filings say eighteen. Confirm the physical count against the approved plans and the certificate of occupancy.

Ignore any "35 residences" description. The subdivision produced thirty-two residential unit lots; combinations have reduced the working count to twenty-nine.

There is no offering plan in either library. Every policy answer must come from the managing agent, in writing.

Ask for the limestone file. Repeated façade, veneer and panel work is in the record from 2000 through 2015. Get the FISP status and the engineer's report.

Check the tax bill. The only exemption on the roll belongs to a foreign government and does not transfer to you; check the apartment's tax bill for any abatement.

The landmark freedom is an asset — say so. No Landmarks review means window and terrace work here is a by-law question, not a two-agency question.

Lead with tenure and location together. A condominium deed one block from the Metropolitan Museum, on Madison between 81st and 82nd, is the scarce thing. The finishes are not.

Check the story count and the unit count in your materials. City records conflict on stories and the 35-residence figure is unsupported; both invite a buyer to discover a discrepancy at exactly the wrong moment.

Price the specific home, not the building. With combinations spread through the stack, a building-average per-foot number is close to meaningless here.

Have the capital-work history ready. Buyers on a 1981 limestone building will ask. Answering with a documented, funded record of façade and systems work is a strength.

If you're considering 1080 Madison, also evaluate:

• 998 Fifth Avenue — McKim, Mead & White's 1912 cooperative at the western end of the same tax block, inside the Metropolitan Museum Historic District; the same block, a different world
• 1114 Madison Avenue — 1938 building with 56 residences; cooperative apartments within a condominium structure, so a tenure comparison rather than a condominium peer
• 1009 Madison Avenue (Charles House) — 1956 condominium with roughly a hundred residences; the larger, older condominium alternative to the south
• 1033 Madison Avenue — Kenneth Murchison's 1925 cooperative at East 79th Street; the boutique pre-war co-op alternative
• 1040 Madison Avenue — 18-residence 1925 cooperative; the smallest-scale pre-war alternative nearby
• 1095 Madison Avenue — roughly 30 apartments in a 1912 building converted to cooperative
• 1115 Madison Avenue — 57-apartment 1963 cooperative; the post-war co-op alternative with large layouts
• 987 Madison Avenue (Carlyle House) — 1930 cooperative on the Carlyle block
• 1122 Madison Avenue — Studio Sofield and Hill West Architects new construction at East 84th Street; the current-generation condominium on the avenue, at a far higher tier
• 1230 Madison Avenue — Robert A.M. Stern Architects on the Guggenheim block, and a cooperative despite being marketed otherwise; read that page next to this one for the tenure contrast