130 West 79th Street (The Austin)

The building occupies a 7,356-square-foot mid-block lot with 72 feet of frontage, in an R10A contextual zoning district. Its recorded floor area works out to a ratio of 8.93 against the district's 10.0 residential maximum; that simple comparison does not establish legal zoning floor area or permitted future work, and the historic district designation adds Landmarks review to any exterior addition.

Ninety-three residential units across nineteen stories produces a compact plate: roughly five to six apartments per floor through most of the stack, with fewer at the top. Inventory runs from studios and one-bedrooms through two- and three-bedroom layouts, with balconies distributed through the building rather than confined to particular tiers. Because the site is mid-block and interior, exposure is the governing variable. North-facing units look across West 79th Street; south-facing units look over the low-rise rear yards of the 78th Street row houses, which are themselves inside the historic district. Outlook still varies by floor and position, and no view is protected without a recorded instrument.

The commercial unit at the base — roughly 5,300 square feet of the building's 65,725 square feet of floor area — is separately owned.

The Austin runs as a doorman condominium with a health club and building laundry. There is no parking garage. Compare the current operating budget, reserves, common charges and included services with specific Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue towers; the amenity list alone does not establish lower costs.

No offering plan, audited financial statements or board communications for this building were located in either document library at the time of writing. That is a real gap. Everything a buyer would want to know about capital posture at a 1988 building — reserve balance, Local Law 11 cycle status and cost, whether an assessment is running, what the balconies have required — is unavailable from the sources behind this page and must be obtained from the managing agent. Given that the building is thirty-eight years old, carries balconies on every elevation, and requires Landmarks review for exterior work, those questions are not optional. Ask specifically for the current budget, the reserve balance, the most recent Local Law 11 filing and its remediation status, and the record of any assessment in the last five years.

Ownership form: Condominium. Purchases close through the board's right of first refusal rather than a cooperative-style approval.

Pied-à-terre, subletting, LLC, trust and foreign ownership: Not documented; confirm in the declaration, bylaws and house rules, including any minimum lease terms.

Pets: Permitted per management-sourced records. Confirm weight and breed limits in the house rules.

Flip tax and financing: Not documented in the records reviewed. Confirm any resale capital contribution, minimum down payment and lender requirements with the managing agent before pricing a transaction.

Exterior alterations: Subject to Landmarks Preservation Commission review and board approval, plus Department of Buildings approval where the scope requires a permit. Window replacement in particular should be assumed to require an LPC permit.

Real estate taxes: The assessment roll shows no exemption; check the specific unit's tax bill for any abatement and underwrite from it.

Recent sales

Recent closings 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 $1,810/sf (floor-adjusted) across 1 sale. 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 1.5% 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 1-01150-7503; each condominium apartment is its own tax lot). 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 from recorded condo declarations and offering plans.

The building is landmarked. Plan around it. Exterior alterations, including window replacement, require Landmarks Preservation Commission review. This is confirmed by tax lot against the LPC's own database, not inferred from city data.

Get the financials before you go to contract. No offering plan or audited statement for this building is held in our document libraries. Request the current budget, reserve balance, Local Law 11 status and assessment history directly from the managing agent, and do not rely on the absence of information as reassurance.

Underwrite from the tax bill. The roll shows no exemption on the unit lots and no schedule for one; check the specific unit's bill for any abatement.

Price the exposure, not the floor. On a mid-block interior site, the difference between a north-facing and a south-facing line matters more than three floors of height. The south-facing rear outlook faces the historic district; designation regulates change there but does not protect a view.

There is no garage. For buyers who keep a car, that is a monthly cost this building does not absorb.

Balconies are a capital item. Thirty-eight years of weather on flush-mounted metal balconies across a nineteen-story elevation is a real maintenance obligation, and remediation here needs Landmarks sign-off. Ask when the balconies were last addressed.

Lead with the block and the exposure. The address, the proximity to the Museum of Natural History and Theodore Roosevelt Park, and the low-rise rear outlook — current, not protected — are the building's strongest and least replicable assets.

Present the condominium form as the differentiator. On these side streets the competing inventory is overwhelmingly cooperative. Condominium ownership comes with a right of first refusal instead of a co-op board interview; confirm trust, entity and foreign-ownership rules in the declaration, bylaws and house rules.

Have the building's financial file ready. No plan or audited statement was located in the two libraries reviewed for this profile; a seller who arrives with the current budget, reserve position and Local Law 11 status helps buyers assess capital obligations, without establishing the main source of hesitation or guaranteeing a completed sale.

Explain the landmark status before a buyer's attorney finds it. Framed as Landmarks review over changes to the block's low-rise context, it is an asset. Discovered late, it reads as a restriction nobody disclosed.

If you're considering The Austin, also evaluate:

• The Hopkins (172 West 79th Street) — the other condominium on the same tax block, at the Amsterdam end of the street; the closest structural comparison
• 386 Columbus Avenue — same tax block, built 1981–1985 and likewise inside the historic district; the nearest peer by vintage
• 112 West 79th Street — prewar cooperative on the same block toward Columbus; the co-op alternative with entirely different policy and financing rules
• 164 West 79th Street — prewar cooperative at the western end of the block
• 145 West 79th Street (Manchester House) — directly across the street; the north-side comparison
• 127 West 79th Street (The Clifton House) — the same street closer to Columbus, at a smaller scale
• 101 West 78th Street (The Evelyn) — the corner alternative one street south, on the same tax block
• 223 West 80th Street — a directly comparable Upper West Side condominium that is not landmarked; the useful contrast for understanding what designation costs and protects
• 250 West 81st Street (Two Fifty West 81st) — likewise undesignated; a second reference point on the same question
• The Orleans (100 West 80th Street) — full-service alternative one street north at Columbus