135 Eastern Parkway (Turner Towers)
135 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, NY 11238
Prospect Heights, Brooklyn
BBL 3011790047 · BIN 3029628
- Year built
- 1926
- Type
- Cooperative
- Units
- 186
- Floors
- 15
- Landmark
- No
- Pets
- Not publicly documented — confirm against current house rules
- Flip tax
- By-laws as filed (1980): transferor pays 25% of net profits on a transfer within two years of the closing, 15% thereafter. Current schedule unverified.
- Subletting
- Plan as filed (1980): sale/assignment or sublet requires consent of the board of directors or, failing that, written consent of holders of at least 60% of outstanding shares; consent may be arbitrarily withheld. Current policy unverified.
Compiled by The Roebling Research Desk from the building’s offering plan, amendments, and related building documents (primary source dated 1980 plan as filed). Reported and subject to confirmation. Board policies can change by amendment — confirm at the offer stage.
Turner Towers is the largest and best-known prewar cooperative on the Prospect Heights stretch of Eastern Parkway, and the apartments inside it are among the biggest prewar rooms trading anywhere in brownstone Brooklyn. Sugarman & Berger built it for the Turner Brothers Building Company in the mid-1920s, at the peak of the boom that turned Olmsted and Vaux's parkway from a carriage promenade into a corridor of fifteen-story elevator buildings. The 1980 share schedule runs from modest 2.5-room apartments up through seven- and eight-room layouts and a 10.5-room configuration, with a lettered penthouse tier at the top. Buyers arriving from Park Slope's brownstone floor-throughs are regularly surprised by the scale. The location carries the second argument: the building faces the parkway a block west of the Brooklyn Museum, with the Brooklyn Botanic Garden beyond it, the Brooklyn Public Library's central branch and Grand Army Plaza a short walk west, and the 2/3 express station at the block's eastern end.
The ownership history is a proper piece of New York housing history. By 1978 the then-owner had fallen into arrears on the first mortgage held by Lincoln Savings Bank. Tenants organized a C.P.S. #3 committee, and in March 1979 a corporation they formed — 135 Eastern Parkway Residents, Inc. — took title, assuming the mortgage and roughly $50,000 of the prior owner's operating obligations, with the bank agreeing to forbear during the conversion; had the closing not occurred by September 30, 1980, the bank would have taken title and the offering would have terminated. The plan went out on May 18, 1980, at a total purchase price of $2,953,063 against 135,104 shares. This is one of the rarer New York conversions in which the sponsor was the tenants themselves, and the plan states explicitly that no committee member would receive profits or fees.
Two artifacts of that paperwork still shape the deal room. The by-laws as filed carried a profit-sharing transfer charge — 25 percent of net profits on a sale within two years of the closing, 15 percent after that — a structure that made sense when tenant-purchasers were buying at insider prices, and one that has to be re-verified before any seller sets a price. The transfer and sublet provision required board approval or the written consent of holders of at least 60 percent of the shares, with consent expressly permitted to be arbitrarily withheld. Neither should be assumed to describe the building in 2026; both should be asked about in writing.
Turner Towers also sits outside the Prospect Heights Historic District — the 2009 designation covering 21 blocks of largely 19th-century rowhouses is a comparatively recent line drawn to the north and west. Eastern Parkway is a Scenic Landmark, but that protects the parkway rather than the buildings along it. The consequence for an owner is straightforward: no Landmarks review on window replacement or façade work, and no district-level protection against what gets built nearby.
Architecture and unit composition
The building occupies a deep through-block site, presenting roughly 201 feet of frontage to Eastern Parkway and running about 170 feet back to Lincoln Place. Fifteen stories of brick rise in the massing typical of Sugarman & Berger's mid-1920s apartment work, with the interior light courts a footprint of this depth requires — which is why line position matters here more than in a shallower building. Parkway-facing lines look south across the Scenic Landmark's malls and service roads; rear and court lines are quieter and differently lit, and the difference is legible in pricing.
The apartment stock is the building's real asset. The 1980 schedule lists room-and-bath counts running from 2.5-1 through 7-2.5, 8-2.5 and 10.5-4, with a PHA-through-PHD penthouse group at the top of the stack. Classic prewar plans of this vintage bring entry foyers, separated entertaining and sleeping wings, and proportion that renovation cannot manufacture. Decades of combination mean today's apartment does not always match the line's original share allocation, so per-line comparison is weaker here than a straight assessment of the specific apartment — rooms, exposure, floor, and the quality and permitting of its renovation.
Building operations
Turner Towers Tenants Co-op Corp. has run the building since the 1980-era closing, and the operating record is unusually long: financial statements in The Roebling Research Library run from the turn of the century forward, supporting genuine trend analysis on maintenance growth, reserve practice and capital spending rather than a single-year snapshot. The conversion-era file records a union labor agreement with the building service employees' union, District 9 in Brooklyn — a staffing tradition consistent with the attended-lobby model documented today — and a first-year budget in which salaries, payroll taxes and union benefits made the largest expense line.
For a mid-1920s masonry building of this size, the recurring capital items to review are the FISP/LL11 façade cycle, elevator modernization, roof and parapet work, and the heating plant, which the sponsor was converting from oil to gas at the time of the offering. The co-op's long financial record will illuminate all of them. Confirm current staffing, the managing agent, assessment history and the reserve position with management during diligence.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Jun 25, 2026 | 11L | $1,100,000 |
| Apr 13, 2026 | 9K | $1,694,000 |
| Mar 19, 2026 | 2E | $1,405,000 |
| Oct 15, 2025 | 14E | $2,270,000 |
| Aug 4, 2025 | 13H | $1,050,000 |
| Feb 18, 2025 | 9E | $1,850,000 |
Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 3-01179-0047) 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
Buy the apartment, not the line. Decades of combinations make the original share allocation an imperfect guide. Evaluate the specific rooms, exposure, floor and renovation — and have your attorney confirm the share count and any combination approvals against the current ledger.
Get the transfer charge in writing early. The 1980 by-laws carried a steep profit-sharing flip tax. Whatever survives of it is a material number on your eventual exit, and belongs in the application-stage questions rather than the contract-stage ones.
No historic district means no Landmarks review — and no district protection. Window replacement and façade work here do not pass through the LPC. Neither does anything a neighbor builds.
Read the long financial record. Few Brooklyn co-ops offer two decades of continuous statements. Reserve trend, maintenance trajectory, assessment history and capital practice are all visible in them, as is the contribution of the six ground-floor professional units.
What to know if you’re selling
Name the architects and the builder. Sugarman & Berger for the Turner Brothers Building Company is a real attribution in a corridor where most large prewars are marketed anonymously. Put it in the first paragraph.
Lead with room count. Seven, eight and ten-and-a-half-room prewar apartments are scarce in Brooklyn at any price. Present the plan by rooms and photograph the proportions rather than the finishes.
Position against the Parkway and Plaza Street set. Those are the honest comparables; contemporary condominium pricing in the neighborhood will not support your ask, and a buyer's appraiser will not accept it.
Prepare the board package early, transfer charge included. Buyers' attorneys will find the charge regardless, and sellers who assemble current policies, financials and application requirements before the first offer keep it from becoming a renegotiation lever.
Comparable buildings
If you're considering Turner Towers, also evaluate:
- 125 Eastern Parkway (The Theodore Roosevelt) — the neighboring prewar cooperative on the same Parkway blockfront; the closest direct peer
- 175 Eastern Parkway — large prewar elevator co-op further east on the corridor
- 41 Eastern Parkway — prewar co-op at the Grand Army Plaza end of the Parkway
- 34 Plaza Street East — Plaza Street prewar cooperative facing Grand Army Plaza
- 50 Plaza Street East — smaller Plaza Street prewar co-op; the boutique alternative
- 10 Plaza Street East — the largest of the Plaza Street cooperatives, on the Park Slope side of the circle
- 230 Park Place — Prospect Heights co-op inside the historic district; the landmarked-context comparison
- 1 Grand Army Plaza (Richard Meier on Prospect Park) — the condominium alternative at the Plaza, for buyers weighing tenure
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.
Considering a move at Turner Towers?
Request a private building brief with the relevant comparable sales, current and off-market availability, and an apartment-specific view of value.
Own an apartment here? See what it would sell for.
A Private Pricing Opinion — what your apartment at Turner Towers 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.