The Theodore Roosevelt (125 Eastern Parkway)

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. The financial effect of the permit framework depends on the specific work and documented costs; no price premium is established here.

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.

Capital diligence for this 1923 masonry building includes the roof, parapet, façade, elevator, heating plant and risers. FISP applies to buildings higher than six stories; confirm DOB’s classification before assigning a mandatory cycle to the six-story building described here. 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, applicable façade-condition records and the underlying mortgage terms. Compare debt service with taxes, staffing, insurance, reserves and capital work before ranking maintenance drivers.

Purchaser review: Full cooperative board approval in the standard form. The proprietary lease as filed requires the corporation's consent before a shareholder may sell or sublet, with holders of unsold shares exempt from that requirement.

Alterations: The plan preserved the sponsor's and unsold-share holders' right to change apartment size and layout with share reallocation, subject to the apartment corporation's requirements. For an ordinary shareholder, alterations run through the board's alteration agreement and Department of Buildings permits.

Superintendent's apartment: Apartment 2H was supplied to the superintendent rent-free at conversion, with a contemplated move to a cellar apartment and a subsequent sale of 2H. Current status should be confirmed.

Flip tax or transfer fee: Not documented in the plan reviewed. Ask the board directly; a cooperative of this vintage may well have adopted one by amendment.

Pets, pied-à-terre, washer-dryer, sublet term limits, financing minimums: Not documented. Confirm against the current house rules and purchase application.

Landmarks: None applicable. Exterior alterations proceed through the Department of Buildings.

Recent sales

Recent transfers 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 (2026 to date) cleared a median $1,722/sf (floor-adjusted) across 2 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 0.0% from the last ask.

Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 3-01179-0061). 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 on co-ops is not officially recorded, figures shown are approximate.

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. Obtain the current balance, rate and maturity, plus three years of financials and the assessment history. Compare debt service with other operating and capital costs; the 51-apartment count does not establish its share of maintenance.

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.

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. Compare actual interior dimensions, room counts, exposure, condition and carrying costs across the parkway’s buildings; gross-area ratios and building heights do not establish apartment-size rankings or an appraiser’s conclusion.

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.

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