1230 Madison Avenue

This building is described almost everywhere — including, until this revision, on this page — as a condominium. It is not.

The public record is unambiguous on the point, and it is worth showing the work, because the mistake changes what a buyer is actually purchasing:

• The Department of Finance carries the property in building class D4 — elevator cooperative, not in any condominium class.
• The property sits on a conventional tax lot (Manhattan block 1500, lot 54). A condominium is subdivided into individual unit tax lots numbered from 1001 upward, and each apartment is separately assessed and billed. No such unit lots exist here. The whole building is assessed as a single parcel, which is how cooperatives are taxed and is structurally impossible for a condominium.
• Recorded transfers of the individual apartments are filed as single residential cooperative unit transactions — transfers of shares with an assignment of proprietary lease, not deeds. The recorded apartment transfers of early 2025 were filed this way.

So the entire "no board, condo flexibility" argument that circulates about this building — and that this page previously made — is wrong. A purchase here goes to a cooperative board, subject to a board package, financial review, and interview. Financing terms, sublet policy, pied-à-terre and trust or LLC purchases, and any flip tax are all governed by the co-op's own rules, which are not published and must come from the managing agent before an offer.

That correction is not a knock on the building. It is the most interesting thing about it.

The exterior is the point. Rather than the glass curtain wall that defines most new Manhattan luxury construction, the building is clad in a limestone-forward classical composition by Robert A.M. Stern Architects, the office most closely identified with new buildings that read as pre-war. SLCE Architects served as architect of record; the Department of Buildings filings for the new building and the subsequent alterations are consistent with that division of work.

The massing sits comfortably among Carnegie Hill's masonry landmarks — the Guggenheim shares the block — with private terraces carved into select upper floors. The demolition of the prior structure and the new-building application both ran under 1230 Madison Avenue in the Department of Buildings record.

Two dimensional facts are genuinely unsettled in the public record and we state both rather than pick one: the approved new-building application describes 19 stories at 210 feet, while later alteration filings and published descriptions say 20 stories at 208 feet.

Thirteen residences is the figure the city both approved and taxes. Fifteen is the figure in later alteration filings and in every marketing description we have seen. We have not found a document that reconciles them, and the gap is small enough to be explained by how a duplex or triplex penthouse is counted — recorded transfers include apartments designated as a duplex penthouse and a triplex penthouse alongside numbered floor-through residences.

What is not in doubt is the shape of the stock: this is a building of very large, full-floor and multi-floor apartments, sold to a small number of households. Published figures put the average apartment at roughly 3,460 square feet. Buyers on this corridor have historically had to find space at that scale in a pre-war full-floor cooperative; here it comes with new mechanical systems, new air handling, and contemporary construction.

For a building of this size the amenity program is deliberately compact: a fitness room, an entertainment and event room, bicycle storage, and private terraces on select residences. That is the right scale for thirteen households, and it is worth reading it that way rather than comparing it to the amenity decks of 200-unit towers — the carrying cost of a large amenity program divided across thirteen apartments would be punishing.

The location supplies the rest. The Guggenheim is on the block, the Metropolitan Museum and Central Park are a short walk, and the Madison Avenue gallery-and-boutique corridor runs past the door. The Lexington Avenue lines and the Second Avenue subway are both within reach.

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. Most recent trades (2025) cleared a median $2,610/sf across 2 sales. 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 1-01500-0054) 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.

Underwrite this as a co-op purchase, because that is what it is. Budget for a board package, a financial disclosure, and an interview. If your purchase involves a trust, an LLC, a non-resident buyer, or a pied-à-terre use, raise it with the managing agent before you make an offer rather than after — these are exactly the structures that cooperative boards restrict, and nothing about new construction changes that.

Get the board terms in writing first. Financing ceiling, post-closing liquidity requirement, sublet policy and flip tax are not published anywhere for this building and vary enormously between co-ops. At this price point the post-closing liquidity requirement in particular can be the binding constraint.

Confirm the apartment count and the specific unit's designation. With 13 and 15 both in the record, and with duplex and triplex penthouses in the mix, do not assume a marketing floor number corresponds to a single legal residence.

Ask what the building's financial statements show. A thirteen-unit cooperative has thirteen households funding every capital item. There is no commercial rent roll and no garage income visible in the record to cushion an assessment, and a small share count means a single major project moves everyone's maintenance. Ask for the audited financials and the reserve position.

Lead with what is actually rare. The design pedigree and the limestone facade are real, but they are not unique — Robert A.M. Stern has designed a number of Manhattan luxury buildings. What no competing new building on the East Side offers is a new-construction cooperative on the Guggenheim block. That is the scarcity, and it is being underused because the market keeps describing the building as a condominium.

Know that mis-description is costing you buyers in both directions. A buyer who arrives expecting condominium flexibility discovers a board and walks. A buyer who wants a co-op and is screening for one never sees the building because it is filed everywhere as a condo. Correcting the record in your own materials is free and it fixes both problems.

Price against the right set. Benchmarking to new East Side condominiums will overstate liquidity and understate the governance premium a co-op buyer is willing to pay for a building of thirteen households. Benchmarking to pre-war Carnegie Hill cooperatives will understate what new systems and new construction are worth. The honest answer sits between them, and the argument has to be made deliberately.

• 1122 Madison Avenue — new-construction limestone building on Madison
• 1033 Madison Avenue — Madison Avenue cooperative nearby
• 1095 Madison Avenue — a white-glove pre-war co-op
• 1040 Fifth Avenue — Fifth Avenue cooperative on Museum Mile
• 1056 Fifth Avenue — George F. Pelham's 1951 postwar Museum Mile co-op