125 East 74th Street
125 East 74th Street, New York, NY 10021
Lenox Hill, Upper East Side
BBL 1014090009 · BIN 1043076
- Year built
- 1927
- Type
- Cooperative
- Units
- 28
- Landmark
- Designated
Every recorded sale at this building, 2003–2026
Bedroom-by-bedroom medians, the full transfer record, and how units trade against ask.
- 2BR median
- $1.4M
- Recent range
- $850K – $5.5M
- Listing discount
- 4.3%
- Recorded transfers
- 51
This is a thirty-apartment building on a block that is otherwise churches, townhouses and one Park Avenue corner tower. Lot 9 sits between the Church of the Resurrection's parish buildings to the west and a run of 1870s row houses to the east, inside the original Upper East Side Historic District. Nothing on the block can grow, and the co-op itself is built to more than seven times its lot area against a zoning maximum of four — the scale is frozen in both directions.
Lafayette A. Goldstone designed it in the late 1920s for a single-purpose owner named for the address, and the offering plan on file describes a building conceived as a cooperative from the start: Indiana limestone at the base, rough red brick above, wood-burning fireplaces, soundproofing between apartments, high ceilings, individual storage rooms and a common laundry. Two elevators serve nine floors and a penthouse. The 1953 plan counted 30 apartments across 150 rooms plus eight servants' rooms — roughly five rooms to an apartment, which in 1920s planning means real foyers, staff wings and separate service entrances rather than open-plan square footage.
What the building is today is smaller than what it was offered as. The audited financial statements on file count 28 residential units, two doctors' offices and the superintendent's apartment. Seventy years of combinations — permitted expressly by the by-laws, which let the board re-group apartments and re-allocate shares on written request — have taken the count down. Buyers pulling PLUTO will see 30 and 32; the cooperative's own accountants see 28 plus two professional units. Use the accountants' number.
The third thing that distinguishes this building is its balance sheet, and it cuts both ways. The underlying mortgage is $815,000 — remarkably small debt for a full-service prewar Upper East Side cooperative, refinanced in 2019 at 3.75 percent interest-only through August 2029, with an undrawn quarter-million-dollar line of credit behind it. Against that, the audited statements are explicit that the governing documents do not require the corporation to accumulate funds for future major repairs, that no study of remaining useful lives has been done, and that no plan exists to fund future capital needs; major work is done as needed and paid for as it arises. The supplementary schedules on file show exactly what that means in practice — shareholder contributions for building improvements recorded in nearly every year from the late 1990s onward, including a chimney-liner contract of $435,000 and elevator door-lock monitor work in a single recent cycle. This is a low-debt, assessment-funded house. That is a coherent and defensible way to run a small cooperative, but a buyer should underwrite the assessment line, not just the maintenance line.
Architecture and unit composition
Goldstone gave the building a neo-Italian Renaissance elevation: a rusticated Indiana limestone base carrying English-bond rough-textured red brick above, with the ornament concentrated at the entrance and cornice rather than spread across the facade. LPC's record notes no significant alteration. The nine-story-plus-penthouse massing is typical of the mid-block Upper East Side apartment houses of the period, built to the street wall with a rear yard.
Apartment layouts follow the original room-count logic rather than square footage. The 1953 schedule of 30 apartments across 150 rooms, plus eight separate servants' rooms leased individually under their own proprietary leases, describes a building of five-room average apartments with staff space held apart. Where those servants' rooms and adjacent apartments have since been recombined, the resulting homes are larger and less regular than the original plan — the by-laws on file give the board discretion to permit combinations, conversions and share re-allocation, and it has clearly been exercised. Wood-burning fireplaces, inter-apartment soundproofing and generous ceiling heights were called out in the original marketing and survive in much of the building. Two professional units at the base operate as doctors' offices and are carried on the corporation's books as such.
Building operations
A small full-service prewar house with a union staff, two elevators, a four-room superintendent's apartment, individual storage rooms and a common laundry. Fixed charges are dominated by real estate taxes rather than debt service, which is unusual and follows directly from the small underlying mortgage. Management is outside and professional. The most recent financial statements on file cover the corporation's operations in detail, including the union pension and health-fund exposure that comes with 32BJ staffing; those documents are available to clients' counsel during diligence.
Policy framework
Ownership form: Cooperative. You are buying shares in 123 East 74th Street Corporation together with a proprietary lease, not real property. Closings run on the board's calendar, not the contract's.
Transfer fee: 2 percent on the purchase of shares, payable to the corporation, per the notes to the audited financial statements on file. This is a documented figure, not a market estimate.
Assignment and subletting: Both require written board consent under the proprietary lease and by-laws on file. Seasoning requirements, sublet term caps and sublet fees are set by board policy and are not published anywhere; request the current house rules from the managing agent before you write an offer.
Financing ceiling, post-closing liquidity and debt-to-income: Not documented in any public record. Upper East Side prewar cooperatives of this scale commonly cap financing well below conventional levels and require substantial post-closing liquidity, but we will not put a number on this building that we cannot source. Ask the managing agent directly, and ask before you fall in love with an apartment.
Pied-à-terre, co-purchase, guarantors, gifts, trusts and LLC ownership: Not documented. Assume a board-discretion posture and confirm.
Pets: Not documented in public records. Confirm in the house rules.
Real estate taxes: No J-51, no 421-a, no exemption of any kind on the tax lot in the Department of Finance record, historically or currently. The building has always been taxed at full assessment, which means there is no future step-up in the tax line — the number you see is the number that stays.
Local Law 97
- 2024–2029 annual penalty
- $0 (under cap)
- 2030–2034 annual penalty
- $5,523/yr
- Per unit / month range
- $0 – $15
Source: NYC LL84 benchmarking and PLUTO · The Roebling Research Library. City record last verified September 2026.
See full Local Law 97 analysis — emissions history, scenarios, methodology →Facade safety — Local Law 11
The latest available FISP filing classified the facade as Safe — no repairs were required at that inspection. Facade inspections run on a fixed five-year cycle; future inspection, repair, and any assessment decisions remain building-specific.
How to read this, and where it comes from
QEWI = Qualified Exterior Wall Inspector — the licensed engineer the city requires to sign the report (the independent expert, not the managing agent).
Source: NYC DOB facade filings (FISP) · The Roebling Research Library. City record last verified September 2026.
Recent sales
This is thin-trading inventory by construction: 28 apartments, closely held, in a historic district on a block with no competing supply. Transactions here are episodic rather than continuous, and in any given year the building may produce one or two closings or none at all. That makes building-average pricing close to meaningless and makes line-by-line and condition-by-condition analysis the only honest way to value an apartment.
The right frame is Lenox Hill prewar cooperative pricing on a per-room basis rather than per square foot, adjusted for the specific apartment's exposure, ceiling height, fireplace and whether it incorporates former servants' space. Carrying costs should be read as maintenance plus a realistic assessment allowance, given the corporation's documented practice of funding capital work through shareholder assessments rather than reserves; a comparison against a building with a large reserve and a large underlying mortgage will look misleadingly favourable if you read the maintenance line alone. Unit-level transaction history is maintained in The Roebling Research Library and shared with clients during diligence.
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.
| Date | Unit | Apartment | Price | PPSF | vs. Ask |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jun 11, 2026 | 5B | 1 BR · 1 BA · 950 sf | $1,215,000 | $1,279/sf | -2.8% |
| Feb 20, 2026 | 2B | 1 BR · 1 BA · 1,000 sf | $920,000 | $920/sf | -2.6% |
| Jan 28, 2026 | 4B | 1 BR · 1 BA | $1,540,000 | -17.9% | |
| May 12, 2025 | 3C | 2 BR · 1 BA | $1,400,000 | +0.4% | |
| Feb 5, 2025 | 6A | 2 BR · 1 BA · 1,080 sf | $1,695,000 | $1,569/sf | +0.0% |
| Apr 29, 2024 | PH | 4 BR · 3.5 BA | $5,500,000 | -1.8% | |
| Mar 21, 2024 | 5B | 1 BR · 1 BA | $1,125,000 | +0.0% | |
| Jan 29, 2024 | 2C | 2 BR · 1 BA | $1,025,000 | -14.6% |
Market read. Most recent trades (2026) cleared a median $1,186/sf across 2 sales. Median listing discount 5.1% from the last ask — a recurring negotiation gap worth pricing into any offer or listing strategy.
The retrade record
Lines that have traded more than once in the public record — the building’s appreciation arc, apartment by apartment.
Other recent transfers
| Date | Unit | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Oct 15, 2003 | 9C | $1,235,000 |
Full closing history with price-per-square-foot over time, the complete retrade record, and every line that has traded.
Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 1-01409-0009) 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.
What to know if you’re buying
Get the numeric policy stack in writing before you offer. The financing ceiling, post-closing liquidity requirement, sublet policy and pied-à-terre posture at this building are not published and cannot be inferred. In a 28-apartment cooperative, a single undisclosed threshold can end a deal after you have spent money on it. Run the Co-op Board Qualification Calculator against whatever the managing agent tells you.
Underwrite assessments, not just maintenance. The audited statements say plainly that no reserve funding is required, no reserve study exists, and capital work is done as needed. The shareholder-contribution schedule on file shows improvement assessments in most years going back to the 1990s. Budget for that pattern to continue.
The 2029 mortgage maturity is a date to put in your model. The underlying loan is small and interest-only at 3.75 percent through August 1, 2029. It will be refinanced into whatever rate environment exists then, and the corporation will very likely want to fund deferred work at the same time. Ask your attorney to read the current statements, not the 2019 ones.
Landmark status is real here. Windows, terrace work, through-wall units and anything visible from the street run through LPC in addition to the board and DOB. Price renovation timelines accordingly, and run the Renovation Cost Calculator with a landmark contingency.
Confirm the corporate name at contract. The audited statements name 123 East 74th Street Corporation; the Department of Finance carries 125 E 74th Street Corp. Your attorney should reconcile the two on the stock certificate and in the lien search rather than discovering it at closing.
Do not confuse this building with its neighbours on East 74th Street. 175 East 74th Street sits on the same tax block at lot 33 but is a 1963 building of roughly 95 units and carries no landmark designation; 225 East 74th Street is on a different block entirely. Their economics, policies and pricing have nothing to do with this one.
What to know if you’re selling
Lead with the balance sheet. An $815,000 underlying mortgage on a full-service prewar Upper East Side cooperative is a genuinely strong fact, and buyers' attorneys will find it. Present it up front alongside the assessment history so the two are read together rather than sequentially.
Correct the unit count before a buyer's analyst does it for you. Automated valuation tools will pull 30 residential units from PLUTO. The corporation's own accountants count 28 plus two professional units. The smaller, closely held number is the better story and it is the true one.
Document the combination. If the apartment incorporates former servants' rooms or an adjoining line, the share allocation and the board's re-grouping consent are part of the file. Having that ready shortens attorney diligence materially.
Price by room and by condition. With this few apartments and this little turnover, there is no reliable building average to hang a price on. The comparable set is the surrounding Lenox Hill prewar cooperative stock, adjusted honestly for renovation state.
Comparable buildings
If you're considering 125 East 74th Street, also evaluate:
- 112 East 74th Street — prewar cooperative on the same street, one block west; the closest like-for-like on address and scale
- 120 East 75th Street — 1923 cooperative on the same tax block's north frontage, also in the Upper East Side Historic District
- 103 East 75th Street — small prewar cooperative one block north; comparable share-ownership economics
- 130 East 75th Street — mid-block prewar cooperative in the same corridor
- 117 East 72nd Street — prewar Lenox Hill cooperative two blocks south, similar boutique scale
- 114 East 72nd Street — prewar cooperative with comparable room-count layouts
- 132 East 72nd Street — mid-block prewar cooperative; the same buyer pool
- 109 East 79th Street — prewar cooperative further north; a useful check on how the corridor prices by block
- 133 East 80th Street — small prewar cooperative in a historic district; comparable landmark constraints
The neighborhood
For the full corridor — architecture, schools, transit, and pricing across Upper East Side — read The Roebling Team Guide to Upper East Side.
The full playbook — what goes in the package, how boards read your financials, the interview, and the timeline — plus sample cover, reference, and personal letters you can adapt.
How to read the facts on this page. Items attributed to an offering plan describe the building as it was offered at that filing — unit mix, square footage, the amenity program as planned. They are not a statement about how the building operates today. Tax and compliance figures are sourced separately to current City records and carry their own dates. House rules, staffing and fee policy can change by board resolution without any public filing: treat every policy line here as a starting point for diligence and confirm it with the managing agent.
Considering a move at 125 East 74th Street?
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A Private Pricing Opinion — what your apartment at 125 East 74th Street would likely sell for today, what it costs to sell, and what you’d walk away with — reviewed personally against condition, exposures, renovation quality, and the competition actually on the market.