135 West 3rd Street
135 West 3rd Street, New York, NY 10012
BBL 1005437501 · BIN 1008769
- Year built
- 1907
- Type
- Condominium
- Units
- 6
- Floors
- 7
- Landmark status
- Not an individual landmark; in the South Village Historic District
- NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission records, updated February 2026
Every recorded sale at this building, 2003–2023
Price-per-square-foot over time, the line- and floor-premium curves, and every recorded sale.
- Median $/sf, 2023
- $1,378
- 1 sale
- Listing discount
- 3.9%
- Recorded sales
- 8
- On record
- 2003–2023
Own an apartment here? See what it would sell for.
A Private Pricing Opinion — what your apartment at 135 West 3rd 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.
Six full-floor homes in a 1907 store-and-loft building, on a block that has been loud and useful for a century and a half.
Henry H. Koch designed it in 1907 for Louise Gucker, at a moment when West 3rd Street was turning commercial. The elevated train along South Fifth Avenue took a sharp westward bend onto West 3rd before continuing north on Sixth, and the street filled in around it: a Fire Department repair shop at No. 130 in 1874–75, a horse stable at No. 122 in 1889, then this loft building. Koch's is a plain, competent piece of work — Landmarks classifies the style simply as Utilitarian — and its architectural interest is in the recessed bands of windows set between brick pilasters, which is what a loft façade does when the client wants floor plates and daylight rather than ornament.
The ground floor became a restaurant by 1923 and stayed a place of public assembly for most of the century. In the late 1940s and early 1950s it housed Mona's, one of the oldest lesbian bars in New York, and by the mid-1960s the same space was The Purple Onion, remembered for go-go dancers and volume. Both are recorded in the Landmarks Preservation Commission's designation report for the South Village Historic District, which cites Daniel Hurewitz's Stepping Out for the history. That lineage is a real part of the building's significance and part of why the block reads the way it does.
The residential building is comparatively young. The upper floors were converted between 1996 and 1998 under a single Department of Buildings alteration, and the condominium declaration was recorded on June 4, 1998, with the first unit deed two weeks later. Those records establish the late-1990s conversion and condominium filing, but do not by themselves exclude earlier or later Loft Law coverage. Confirm the lawful occupancy of the specific residence and the Loft Board’s own records; no IMD registration was located in the materials reviewed. The lot is zoned R7-2 with a commercial overlay. Residential use is as-of-right. There is no JLWQA certification requirement and no interim multiple dwelling status documented.
What a buyer should think hardest about is the ground floor. The commercial unit was sold out of the sponsor in 2003 and has been owned by outside investors ever since, net-leased to a 7-Eleven under a lease recorded in November 2012 and carrying its own multi-million-dollar mortgage. That debt is not the residential owners' debt — the units are separately deeded and separately financed — but the tenant is a 24-hour convenience store directly beneath six apartments, on a stretch of West 3rd Street that carries Sixth Avenue's late-night traffic. It is not a defect. It is the trade the building makes, and it should be priced rather than discovered.
The last thing worth knowing is what the building sits against. It covers its entire 25-by-100-foot lot, so there is no rear yard. The west wall abuts a public playground and basketball court, which gives the building something almost no interior Village lot has — an open flank, for as long as the playground remains — and gives it the sound that comes with one.
Architecture and unit composition
Twenty-five feet wide, one hundred feet deep, seven stories, full lot coverage. Brick with granite and limestone at the base per the original new-building application; recessed window bands offset by brick pilasters above. The storefront and entrance are replacements, the first story is painted, and the original cornice was taken down and replaced with a parapet — which the LPC record documents plainly and which any Landmarks application to restore would have to reckon with.
Six residences over roughly 10,560 residential square feet works out to about 1,760 gross square feet per home, one to a floor, running the full 25-foot width and close to the full depth. That is the classic loft-conversion product: floor-through, three exposures where the geometry allows, and no interior corridor once you are inside your own door. The penthouse is a separate unit lot and behaves as one; the record shows roof-deck work filed in 2007 and 2011.
There is one passenger elevator and an active dumbwaiter. Two older elevator devices are recorded as removed, but device removal alone does not establish former elevator type, replacement scope or conversion-era timing; obtain the relevant permits and installation records.
Building operations
A small condominium with a professional managing agent and no residential staff of record. The capital history since conversion is the normal sequence for a century-old loft: filings for parapet replacement and façade repairs in the early 2000s with a sidewalk shed in 2005; filings in 2013 to replace the structural sidewalk vault ceiling and remediate a corroded steel beam; a manual and automatic smoke detection and sprinkler alarm system filed under a job that stayed open into 2025. Vault work under a Manhattan sidewalk is expensive and rarely optional; confirm completion and current condition with the managing agent.
The building has six residential and one commercial unit. Confirm the declaration’s expense-specific percentages for façade, roof and elevator costs; they need not divide equally or fall exclusively on residences. ACRIS also shows a lien for common charges filed against one unit in 2012 and discharged in 2014 — a historical collection event whose budget effect requires its amount, allocation and the relevant financial statements. Ask the managing agent for the current arrears position and the reserve balance.
Policy framework
We located no offering plan for this building in either document library, and we do not carry unsourced policy. What that means practically:
Ask for, in writing, before you offer: the current common charge and what it includes; the reserve balance and any assessment history; the board's position on subletting, pets and short-term occupancy; whether the by-laws carry a right of first refusal (common in small condominiums and consequential in a six-unit one); the Local Law 11 cycle status and the elevator's remaining service life; and the terms and remaining term of the ground-floor lease, because the retail tenant is a fixture of daily life here.
Keep occupancy and tax questions separate. The filed conversion is in a residence district and no artist-certification restriction or IMD registration was established in the reviewed records. Confirm the certificate of occupancy and Loft Board history rather than skip that inquiry. The exemption roll shows no benefit; check the apartment’s current tax bill separately.
Local Law 97
This building is below the 25,000 sq ft threshold at which LL97 limits apply to a building on its own. It is still covered if it shares a tax lot or condominium board with buildings totaling over 50,000 sq ft; confirm on DOB’s covered-buildings list.
See full Local Law 97 analysis →Facade safety — Local Law 11
The latest available filing classified the facade as SWARMP — Safe With A Repair and Maintenance Program: the inspector (QEWI) identified conditions requiring monitoring or repair, with repairs due by the deadline stated in the filing. The scope, timeline, and how the building funds the work are building-specific — we review the filings and board materials for you.
How to read this, and where it comes from
QEWI = Qualified Exterior Wall Inspector — a licensed professional engineer or registered architect who meets DOB’s FISP qualifications and signs the report (the independent expert, not the managing agent).
Penalties shown are amounts DOB assessed against filings on record across 2005–10 to 2020–25. The FISP dataset does not record whether they were paid, contested or remain open, so treat the figure as history rather than a current balance and confirm the building’s standing with the managing agent.
Source: NYC DOB facade filings (FISP) · The Roebling Research Library. City data last refreshed September 2026.
Recent sales
Use dated arm’s-length sales and active listings to measure resale supply; six residences alone do not establish near-zero annual inventory. Compare floor, ceiling height, conversion-work condition and outdoor rights, checking whether any building aggregate is based on a sufficiently relevant sample. The competitive set is the other small South Village and Greenwich Village loft conversions of the 1990s and 2000s, plus boutique full-floor condominiums on Sullivan, Thompson and Bleecker. As a condominium, there is no co-op board admission; purchases run through the condominium's application and right-of-first-refusal process. Confirm financing, leasing and ownership-entity rules in the current declaration, by-laws and house rules.
The offsetting factors a buyer's attorney will find are the six-unit budget, the absence of any tax benefit, and the ground-floor tenancy. All three are answerable. Unit-level transaction history is maintained in The Roebling Research Library and shared with clients during diligence.
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.
| Date | Unit | Apartment | Price | PPSF | vs. Ask |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dec 11, 2023 | 4 | 2 BR · 2 BA · 2,250 sf | $3,100,000 | $1,378/sf | -4.6% |
| Nov 29, 2021 | 2 | 2 BR · 2 BA · 2,250 sf | $2,699,000 | $1,200/sf | -5.3% |
| Jul 8, 2021 | 3 | 2 BR · 2 BA · 2,250 sf | $2,900,000 | $1,289/sf | -3.2% |
| Feb 6, 2015 | 4 | 2 BR · 2 BA · 2,250 sf | $2,995,000 | $1,331/sf | +0.0% |
| Dec 15, 2004 | PH | 2 BR · 2,250 sf | $2,485,000 | $1,104/sf | -0.4% |
| Jan 16, 2004 | 5 | 2 BR · 2,250 sf | $1,275,000 | $567/sf | -5.6% |
| Oct 8, 2003 | PH | 2 BR · 2,250 sf | $2,450,000 | $1,089/sf | — |
Market read. Most recent trades (2023) cleared a median $1,378/sf (recorded) across 1 sale. Median listing discount 3.9% from the last ask — a recurring negotiation gap worth pricing into any offer or listing strategy.
The retrade record
Lines that have traded more than once in the public record — the building’s appreciation arc, apartment by apartment.
Full closing history with price-per-square-foot over time, the complete retrade record, and every line that has traded.
Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 1-00543-7501; 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.
What would your apartment rent for?
Enter your apartment and I'll send you what it would rent for, from comparable closed leases at 135 West 3rd Street and nearby.
Buying here? Condo closing costs with a mortgage typically run 3 to 6% of the price. See NYC co-op and condo closing costs, line by line.
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Comparable buildings
If you're considering 135 West 3rd Street, also evaluate:
- 136 Sullivan Street (First Sullivan Condominium) — a six-residence full-floor condominium a few blocks west, the closest like-for-like in scale and product
- 54 Bleecker Street (The NoHo Star) — eleven residences plus commercial in an 1896 loft, the same conversion logic at slightly larger scale
- 147 Waverly Place (The Waverly Building) — eighteen-unit 1912 conversion, boutique Village condominium alternative
- 209 Sullivan Street — loft-and-penthouse condominium in a converted nineteenth-century schoolhouse
- 19 West Houston Street — 2003 condominium on West Houston Street, for buyers who want newer systems
- 181 MacDougal Street — sixteen-residence new construction two blocks north, the ground-up alternative
- 131 Thompson Street — prewar cooperative in the same district, for buyers weighing tenure
- 1 Minetta Street — twenty-four-residence 1920s cooperative on a Village side street
- 10 Bleecker Street — 1893 cooperative on the NoHo border
- 36 Bleecker Street (The Schumacher) — 2015 conversion of an 1885 building, the high-finish comparison
More Greenwich Village buildings
- The Zachary (125 East 12th Street) — 1888 condominium
- The Claremont at Union Square, 126 University Place — 1950 condominium
- 130 East 12th Street (First Village) — 1905 condominium
- Novare, 135 West 4th Street — 1859 condominium
- 137 East 13th Street — condominium
- 173 MacDougal Street — 1890 condominium
The neighborhood
For the full corridor — architecture, transit, and pricing across Greenwich Village — read The Roebling Team Guide to Greenwich Village.
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.
Considering a move at 135 West 3rd Street?
Request a private building brief with the relevant comparable sales, current and off-market availability, and an apartment-specific view of value.
646.939.7375 · c.cohen@compass.com