The Theodore Roosevelt (125 Eastern Parkway)
125 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, NY 11238
Prospect Heights, Brooklyn
BBL 3011790061 · BIN 3029629
- Year built
- 1923
- Type
- Cooperative
- Units
- 51
- Floors
- 6
- Landmark
- No
- Subletting
- Proprietary lease as filed (1985) requires the Apartment Corporation's consent before a tenant-stockholder may sell or sublet; holders of Unsold Shares are exempt from that requirement. No term limits, fees or waiting periods documented in the plan reviewed. Current board policy unverified.
Compiled by The Roebling Research Desk from the building’s offering plan, amendments, and related building documents (primary source dated 1985 plan as filed). Reported and subject to confirmation. Board policies can change by amendment — confirm at the offer stage.
Most of the Eastern Parkway cooperatives were converted out of stable ownership by sponsors who had held the building for years and knew exactly what they had. This one arrived at cooperative status by a different road, and the deed record tells the story without embellishment. Between the referee's deed of January 1972 and the sponsor's purchase at a foreclosure sale in September 1983, 125 Eastern Parkway changed hands six times and went through foreclosure twice. Owners came and went at intervals of eighteen months. By the early 1980s the mortgage was held by Dime Savings Bank and the building was in the hands of a court-appointed receiver, whose report the sponsor bound into the offering plan.
That history explains the two most distinctive numbers in the file. The first is the price: the whole building was offered in January 1985 for $3,181,000 in cash against roughly $440,000 of assumed mortgage debt — a low figure even for Brooklyn in 1985, and one that reflects a distressed asset bought at a foreclosure sale sixteen months earlier. The second is the discount. Tenants in occupancy could buy at approximately half the price paid by outside purchasers. The mid-1980s convention was a 25 to 30 percent insider discount; fifty percent is what a sponsor offers when the rent roll is fragile and the alternative to a fast tenant sell-out is another year of carrying a building that has already defaulted twice. Some of the shareholders who took that price are still here. The cost basis inside this corporation is unusually varied as a result, and it shows up in how differently owners price the same line.
The second thing to understand about the building is scale, and it cuts the opposite way from its taller neighbors. Six stories, about 50,600 square feet of building area, 51 apartments, roughly 990 gross square feet each. That places The Theodore Roosevelt squarely in the middle of the parkway's six-story stock — smaller per apartment than the twelve-story building at the Grand Army Plaza end of the block, and considerably smaller than the fifteen-story cooperative four hundred feet east. What it offers instead is a modest share base and a modest operating budget, in a building whose plan describes exactly one full-time employee. That is a genuinely different economic proposition from a full-service building, and the right buyer prefers it.
The plan's unit count is a live paperwork problem and belongs in the diligence file rather than in a footnote. The cover allocates 15,905 shares to 51 apartments. The Introduction describes 52 residential apartments, of which 50 were to be sold, one held by the superintendent and one a cellar apartment occupiable only by an employee, and then gives a share total of 15,500. The Department of Finance records 51 residential units. The reconciliation exists in the share ledger and the amendments; an attorney should close it out early rather than at the closing table.
Finally, the location, which the plan itself names in the plainest possible terms: "the Brooklyn Museum area of Brooklyn." That is an accurate description of the building's market. It sits on the museum side of the parkway's Prospect Heights stretch, roughly midway between Grand Army Plaza and the Brooklyn Museum, and it draws buyers from both directions.
Architecture and unit composition
Six stories on a 12,900-square-foot lot, with about 101 feet of frontage on the parkway and roughly 107 feet of building depth. The Schedule A room counts in the 1985 plan were calculated by visual inspection, with the room identification for each apartment set out in a separate schedule — a detail worth remembering when comparing this building's room counts against a co-op that used the Real Estate Board of New York convention, which counts half-rooms.
The apartment plans are early-1920s middle-class Brooklyn: defined rooms, entry foyers where the plan allowed for them, and a mix that ran from small units through family layouts. The plan permitted the sponsor and any holder of unsold shares to change apartment size and layout by subdivision, combination or alteration of boundary walls, with share reallocation, which means the 1985 schedule is an imperfect map of the building in 2026. Confirm the actual configuration and share count of the specific apartment.
The superintendent's apartment is a live question rather than a settled fact. The plan says the corporation supplies apartment 2H to the superintendent rent-free and contemplates that he will eventually move to the cellar apartment, at which point the sponsor would sell 2H. Whether that happened, and whether 2H is now part of the sellable inventory, is a question for the managing agent.
Because the property is outside the Prospect Heights Historic District, interior and exterior alterations both proceed through board approval and Department of Buildings permits with no Landmarks review. On a six-story masonry building facing a scenic parkway, that is a meaningful simplification of a window or façade project — and it is one of the few places where an unlandmarked address is worth explicit money.
Building operations
The plan's operating model was as lean as a 51-apartment elevator building gets: one full-time non-union superintendent housed on site, electricity to common areas, the elevator and the fuel-burner pilot, and a first-year maintenance budget of $157,955 against 15,905 shares. Apartments were separately metered, so each shareholder paid their own gas and electricity directly. Four decades on, the staffing, contracts and budget are all board-made; the cooperative's Department of Housing Preservation and Development registration names Narrows Management as managing agent for the current cycle.
The tax history is a period artifact. The sponsor did qualifying work, the City granted a Certificate of Reasonable Cost, and the plan projected 1985/86 real estate taxes of $9,765 for the entire property under J-51 benefits. Those benefits are finite by design and are long behind the building; the operative number is on the current bill, and the per-share tax allocation should be pulled rather than reasoned from the conversion documents.
In a 1923 masonry building the recurring capital items are the roof and parapet, the Local Law 11 façade cycle, the elevator, the heating plant and the risers. In a corporation this size, each of them lands hard on a limited share base. Request three years of financial statements, the reserve balance, the assessment history, the last two façade filings and — first — the terms of the underlying mortgage, because in a 51-apartment cooperative debt service is the largest single driver of the maintenance charge.
Recent sales
The retrade record
Lines that have traded more than once in the public record — the building’s appreciation arc, apartment by apartment.
Recent transfers at this building, sourced from NYC Department of Finance records. Apartment-level detail (line, condition, asking-price context) verified upon consultation request.
| Date | Unit | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Feb 27, 2026 | 6CK | $2,322,000 |
| Mar 5, 2026 | 2H | $1,255,000 |
| Sep 26, 2025 | 5A | $2,200,000 |
| Oct 28, 2024 | 2F | $999,000 |
| Oct 10, 2024 | 3A | $505,000 |
| Jul 19, 2023 | 3E/4E | $1,325,000 |
Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 3-01179-0061) 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.
What to know if you’re buying
Reconcile the unit and share count first. The plan says 51 apartments in one place and 52 in another, and gives two different share totals. The Department of Finance says 51 residential units. Your attorney should close that out against the share ledger before contract.
Ask what happened to apartment 2H. The superintendent's apartment was supposed to move to the cellar and 2H was supposed to be sold. Whether it was, and to whom, is a corporate-records question.
Get the underlying mortgage terms early. In a 51-apartment corporation this is the maintenance charge. Balance, rate, maturity, plus three years of financials and the assessment history.
Read the building's ownership history as a diligence prompt, not a warning. Two foreclosures and six owners between 1972 and 1983 mean deferred maintenance was the sponsor's inheritance. Forty years of shareholder governance have had time to correct it. Ask what has been replaced and when.
Verify the room-count convention. The 1985 schedule counted rooms by visual inspection. Compare like with like when shopping the parkway.
What to know if you’re selling
Name the location the way the plan does. The Brooklyn Museum area, midway between Grand Army Plaza and the museum, on the parkway. It draws from two directions and the listing should say so.
Explain the no-Landmarks position properly. Eastern Parkway is a scenic landmark; the buildings along it are not regulated by that designation, and the 2009 historic district stops at the parkway. Window and façade work here does not go through the Landmarks Preservation Commission.
Position against the parkway's six-story co-ops. The taller buildings on the block carry materially larger apartments, and an appraiser will not accept their pricing here. Sell the room count, the light and the maintenance line.
Assemble the board package before the first offer. Financials, reserve balance, assessment history, house rules, sublet policy, flip tax, and the alteration approvals for any work done to the unit.
Comparable buildings
If you're considering The Theodore Roosevelt, also evaluate:
- 175 Eastern Parkway — 1922 six-story parkway co-op at the Brooklyn Museum end; the closest direct peer
- 135 Eastern Parkway (Turner Towers) — the neighborhood's largest prewar cooperative, four hundred feet east on the same block
- 41 Eastern Parkway — the twelve-story prewar co-op at the Grand Army Plaza end of the same block, with much larger apartments
- 230 Park Place — the Art Deco elevator co-op inside the Prospect Heights Historic District; the landmarked comparison
- 225 Park Place — Colonial Revival elevator co-op on the same landmarked blockfront
- 50 Plaza Street East — boutique prewar cooperative on the Grand Army Plaza arc
- 34 Plaza Street East — the large postwar cooperative on the same arc
- 44 Butler Place (Butler Plaza) — the prewar condominium alternative nearby, for buyers weighing tenure
- 235 Lincoln Place — Park Slope prewar co-op at comparable scale across Flatbush Avenue
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.
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