135 East 74th Street
135 East 74th Street, New York, NY 10021
Lenox Hill, Upper East Side
BBL 1014097503 · BIN 1076302
- Year built
- 1924
- Type
- Condop
- Units
- 31
- Floors
- 11
- Landmark
- Designated
- Amenities
- 24-hour doorman, live-in resident manager and laundry room, per listing records. Listing records also describe fireplaces in some apartments
- Financing
- Up to 75 percent, per listing records
- Flip tax
- 2 percent, per listing records. Who pays it is not stated. Confirm with the managing agent
Own an apartment here? See what it would sell for.
A Private Pricing Opinion — what your apartment at 135 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.
This building has an ownership structure that is easy to miss. Park Lex Associates, the sponsor, did not convert the whole building into a single co-op. In 1989 it split the building into a three-unit condominium. It then sold the residential floors to a new co-op corporation and kept the stores and the doctor's office as separate condominium units, which it sold later. As a result, the co-op owns the apartments but not the retail. Shareholders are not responsible for the stores' real estate taxes or running costs, but they also do not collect the retail rent. Under the offering plan, the commercial unit pays 16 percent of the condominium's shared expenses and the professional unit 4 percent.
The building itself is a 1924 George F. Pelham apartment house, part of the Lexington Avenue frontage the city added to the Upper East Side Historic District in 2010. LPC's report says the builder, Joseph Polstein of Whitecourt Construction, advertised apartments of "unusual comfort" just off the busy avenue. That scale holds today: thirty-one apartments on eleven floors plus a penthouse, served by a passenger and a service elevator.
The financing ceiling makes it a practical buy. Listing records put it at 75 percent, higher than at many Lenox Hill prewar co-ops. The building also has a doorman, which a building of 31 apartments often does not.
Architecture and unit composition
LPC describes a building in three parts. There is a one-story masonry base, a nine-story beige-brick shaft and a one-story brick top, finished with terra-cotta sill courses and a molded terra-cotta cornice. The Lexington Avenue front has six bays with storefronts at street level. The East 74th Street front has nine bays with round-arched windows at the base. When the building opened, the apartments had three or six rooms, and there was one penthouse. Today the homes range from compact one-bedrooms to the larger six-room lines, with the penthouse and eleventh-floor combinations at the top.
Building operations
Condominium governance. The building is run by two boards. The co-op board handles admissions and the co-op's own budget. The condominium board of managers handles building-wide matters with the commercial and professional unit owners. The offering plan lists a special risk: the commercial unit owner must consent to certain condominium-board actions, including changes to the common elements. Buyers should read the declaration and by-laws with their attorney.
Underlying mortgage. In March 2021, ACRIS records show the corporation consolidating its mortgage with a New York savings bank at about $2.5 million, roughly $81,000 per apartment. The index does not show the rate or maturity. Ask for both.
Sponsor position. Park Lex Associates, the sponsor, was still selling apartments as recently as April 2022, per ACRIS. How many unsold shares it holds now is not documented. Ask for the most recent plan amendment.
Façade and systems. DOB's façade-inspection record shows a Cycle 9 filing rated safe with repair and maintenance program in December 2021, façade-repair permits in 2024, and a Cycle 10 filing rated safe in October 2025. A 2020 DOB filing replaced the building's fuel-oil tank. Ask about the current fuel setup and any conversion plans.
Policy framework
We have no current house rules or board package for this building. The policies in the At a glance section come from listing records and need to be confirmed. Because this is a condop, ask for two sets of documents: the co-op's proprietary lease and house rules, and the condominium declaration and by-laws. The declaration governs what can happen in the stores and what the co-op can change in the common elements. The managing agent should confirm the flip tax and who pays it, subletting terms, the post-closing liquidity and debt-to-income standards, and whether trusts or LLCs can hold shares.
Notable residents
LPC's designation report, drawing on The New York Times, records that Gilbert Colgate, former president and chairman of Colgate & Co., lived in the building, as did Jack Chrysler, son of Walter P. Chrysler.
Buying here? Co-op closing costs typically run 2 to 3% of the price. See NYC co-op and condo closing costs, line by line.
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What to know if you’re buying
Read both sets of documents. You are buying co-op shares, but the building is governed by a condominium declaration as well. Your attorney should review both.
Ask about the retail. The commercial unit owner can lease the stores for any lawful use, and the offering plan reserves that right. Ask what the stores are used for now and whether the lease terms affect the apartments above.
Get the mortgage terms. The 2021 consolidation is recorded but the maturity is not in the index. Ask the managing agent for it.
What to know if you’re selling
Explain the structure. Give buyers and their attorneys a short note on how the condop works up front. This keeps the structure from becoming a reason to discount.
Lead with the doorman and the financing. A doorman building of thirty-one apartments with 75 percent financing and a landmark Pelham façade is uncommon in this price range.
Comparable buildings
If you're considering 135 East 74th Street, also evaluate:
- 1065 Lexington Avenue — 1925 prewar co-op that also sits inside a condominium, a block north
- 130 East 75th Street — 1928 co-op at the other Lexington Avenue corner of the same block
- 125 East 74th Street — 1927–28 co-op mid-block, in the historic district
- 150 East 73rd Street — nearby prewar co-op with ground-floor commercial units
- 170 East 79th Street — 1927 co-op of similar size
- 111 East 75th Street — 1925 co-op a block north, 36 apartments, no doorman
- 815 Park Avenue — Park Avenue corner of the same block, a step up in price
More Upper East Side buildings
- The Touraine (132A East 65th Street) — 2013 condominium by H. Thomas O'Hara Architects
- 133 East 80th Street — 1930 co-op by Rosario Candela
- 134 East 93rd Street (The Royal Carnegie) — 1988 condominium
- 135 East 79th Street — 2013 condominium
- 136 East 79th Street — 1929 co-op
- 137 East 66th Street — 1918 co-op
The neighborhood
For the full corridor — architecture, 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. Where this page compares one building or neighborhood to another, that is our analysis of the recorded record — it names the measure, the period and the sample it rests on, and it is an observation about medians rather than a prediction about any particular apartment.
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