123 Henry Street

The building is twenty-five feet wide and extends roughly forty-eight feet on the lot, set back about five feet from the front lot line, rising four stories over a basement and a cellar to a main roof at approximately forty-five feet. Floor areas run to roughly 1,200 square feet each at the basement, first, and second floors, tightening to about 1,060 square feet at the third and fourth — so the lower apartments are the larger ones. The cellar carries roughly 1,000 square feet and holds the boiler room and accessory storage under the certificate of occupancy.

Construction is Class 3 non-fireproof: brick masonry walls on stone foundations, wood floor and roof beams, with the north wall serving as a party wall. The rear and side elevations are stuccoed, and the windows at conversion were generally steel casement units. The roof is a built-up assembly pitched to a drain, reached by an iron ladder from the fourth-floor stair hall through a small hatch; a metal-and-glass skylight lights the stair hall and two more light the top-floor bathrooms. A brick chimney with a clay flue liner serves the boiler, on a one-pipe steam system with stand-up cast-iron radiators throughout; a second, central chimney once served an incinerator long out of use. Above the rear of the second floor there is a roof area of roughly fifteen by sixteen feet, reached from the third-floor rear apartment — the building's one piece of private outdoor space. All of this describes the building as inspected at conversion; four decades of shareholder capital work sit between that report and today, and current conditions should be confirmed from the co-op's own records.

Heights Owners Corp. has run the building since the mid-1980s closing, on the small-building model: a superintendent who is not resident, shareholder attention in place of staff, and a managing arrangement under which routine expenditures below a modest threshold could be made without board approval while anything larger required the directors. In a ten-unit corporation with two hundred shares, every capital decision is a meaningful per-shareholder number. For a masonry building of this age inside the historic district, the recurring items are the expected ones — façade and FISP cycles, roof, windows, and the steam plant — and exterior work of any kind engages the Landmarks Preservation Commission. The Roebling Research Library holds the plan, its amendments, the bylaws, the house rules, the proprietary lease, and the corporation's tax filings for client diligence.

Subletting and resale: Under the plan and bylaws as filed, consent to a sale, an assignment of the proprietary lease, or a sublet must be authorized by board resolution, or given in writing by a majority of the directors, or by written consent or vote of shareholders holding at least 60 percent of the shares — and the documents state that consent may be arbitrarily withheld. The shareholder-override structure is a period artifact; current board practice governs and should be confirmed directly.

Proprietary lease term: The lease as filed ends December 31, 2031, extendable by shareholder vote. Confirm that the extension has been effected — this is a real diligence item and lenders will ask.

Pets, pied-à-terre, washer-dryer, financing limits, flip tax: Not documented in the papers available. Confirm against the current house rules and purchase application.

Recent sales

Recent transfers at this building, curated by The Roebling Team research desk. 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. $/sf is measured on the latest sales with reliable square footage (2015): a median $727/sf across 1 sale. The building has traded as recently as 2022. Median listing discount 9.6% 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 3-00237-0033) and verified listing data. Apartment-level facts (line, condition, asking-price context) curated and cross-verified by The Roebling Team research desk. Not all transactions cross-verify with ACRIS records — sponsor and LLC purchases sometimes record at stipulated values rather than market price; square footage on co-ops is not officially recorded, figures shown are approximate.

Check the proprietary lease expiration. The lease as filed runs to the end of 2031. Confirm in writing that shareholders have extended it; a lender will require this.

Price the walk-up honestly. Four floors, no elevator, and the larger apartments at the bottom. That is a real resale factor and should be priced in rather than argued away.

Ask for the capital history. In a ten-unit corporation, one façade cycle or boiler replacement is a substantial per-shareholder number. Get the assessment history, reserve balance, and any planned work before you bid.

Confirm current policy in writing. Sublet rules, pets, and financing standards postdate the 1982 papers; management's current answers control.

Sell the apartment, not the building. With ten units and no amenities, the listing lives or dies on the apartment's light, layout, and renovation. Photograph and document accordingly.

Lead with the block. Henry between Clark and Pierrepont is the middle of the historic district, two blocks from the Promenade and close to the Clark Street express. That address does work no feature list can substitute for.

Have the co-op's file ready. Small buildings invite scrutiny. A clean package — plan, amendments, current financials, reserve position, lease-extension documentation — removes the friction that most often stalls small-co-op deals.

Comp against the district's small walk-ups. The right set is the ten-to-fifteen-unit prewar buildings on the Henry, Hicks, and Willow Street blocks, not the Montague corridor's staffed elevator co-ops.

If you're considering 123 Henry Street, also evaluate:

• 21 Monroe Place — a ten-unit co-op on the same tax block, converted two years later; the closest direct comparable in the district
• 153 Henry Street — the large prewar elevator co-op on the same block; the service-and-scale alternative
• 161 Henry Street — turn-of-the-century co-op on the same block, at a middle scale
• 108 Pierrepont Street — ten-unit Greek Revival house co-op one block south; the house-scale peer
• 99 Clinton Street — ten-unit mid-nineteenth-century co-op on Clinton Street
• 160 Henry Street — prewar elevator co-op further south on Henry
• 145 Hicks Street — large prewar co-op one block west
• 15 Clark Street — prewar co-op at the Clark Street corner
• 20 Pierrepont Street — small prewar co-op peer on Pierrepont