151 Joralemon Street
151 Joralemon Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201
Brooklyn Heights, Brooklyn
BBL 3002540004 · BIN 3002214
- Year built
- 1913
- Type
- Cooperative
- Units
- 20
- Floors
- 5
- Landmark
- Designated
- Subletting
- Written board sublet policy (circulated 2009/2011): 3 years' shareholder residency before first sublet; board approval of every sublease and every annual renewal; 1-year lease terms; working cap of about six sublet apartments at a time to protect building financing; 6 months' written notice of intent; queue ordered by cumulative years sublet. Plan/By-Laws require board resolution, majority of directors in writing, or written consent/vote of holders of at least 66-2/3% of shares.
- Pets
- No bird or animal kept or harbored without express written permission of the corporation, revocable at will; dogs carried or leashed in public portions (House Rules 15)
Compiled by The Roebling Research Desk from the building’s offering plan, amendments, and related building documents (primary source dated 1982 plan; sublet policy circa 2009). Reported and subject to confirmation. Board policies can change by amendment — confirm at the offer stage.
151 Joralemon Street is a small, durable Brooklyn Heights co-op: twenty prewar apartments in a five-story brick walk-up on the historic district's southern edge, run by its own shareholders for four decades with almost no institutional overhead. The building carries no doorman, no elevator, and no amenity program, which keeps its cost basis at the light end of the district's range — paired with a nearly retired underlying mortgage and a landmarked address two turns from Borough Hall.
The building's paperwork is a period document. Blashal Corp. presented the conversion on April 30, 1982 as an eviction plan — the harder-edged conversion form New York effectively retired in the reform era, which protected eligible senior and handicapped tenants but left other non-purchasing tenants exposed after statutory notice periods. Nineteen apartments and 1,990 shares went out at $835,800 in total cash against $354,220 of mortgage debt, with tenant purchasers paying $280 per share and outsiders $420. The corporation was formed in March 1982, took over operations in May 1984, and by 1986 the sponsor had given up control of the board. That is the whole institutional history: an early-1980s conversion that stuck.
The building itself has the honest bones of its date. The 1981 engineering report describes masonry perimeter walls with wood framing behind plaster, a stone-walled cellar, a greenhouse-type wire-glass skylight over the stair, hexagonal tile in the entry foyer and stair landings, marble stair treads on every run, and three iron fire escapes serving the front, rear, and inner yard. Front and rear apartments have chimneys serving fireplaces the superintendent already described as long unused. The four-per-floor plan repeats identically on all five floors, so the variables that matter here are floor, exposure, and renovation state rather than line position.
For buyers, the case is arithmetic. The cooperative refinanced $300,000 in 2003 on a fifteen-year schedule and had amortized the balance to roughly $53,000 by the end of 2016 — an unusually clean balance sheet for a building of this age and scale. Maintenance income has run flat across recent reporting years, with periodic special assessments carried straight to paid-in capital rather than folded into monthly charges: a board practice that keeps monthlies low and moves capital work onto discrete, disclosed line items. Those assessments belong in any honest carrying-cost model. For sellers, the differentiators are the walk-up discount, the Joralemon Street address, and a written sublet policy administered by queue and capped at roughly six apartments precisely so that lenders keep underwriting the building.
Architecture and unit composition
The building is five stories over a cellar, bordered on the east by a neighbor covering the full lot line and partially open on the west, with an interior yard that lights the two center apartments on each floor. Front apartments take light from Joralemon Street; rear apartments take light from the north elevation plus a side window to the west. All twenty apartments were configured as one-bedrooms at conversion, and the plan's own schedule shows narrow share bands across the building — a compressed range, with the twentieth unit outside the offering.
Interiors at conversion carried tongue-and-groove hardwood floors, plaster on wood studs, small kitchens with metal cabinets, and original bathroom fixtures throughout. Four decades of shareholder renovation have moved the inventory a long way from that baseline, which is exactly why apartment-level condition drives the spread here. Electrical service was 110-volt at 30 amperes per apartment in 1981 and flagged as inadequate for modern loads; any buyer evaluating a substantial renovation should confirm what upgrade work the specific unit and the building risers have absorbed since. Exterior work — windows included — runs through the Landmarks Preservation Commission under the district designation.
Building operations
151 Joralemon St. Apt. Corp. has run the building since the 1984 closing. The operating model is the smallest one the district supports: an outside managing agent on a modest annual fee, a janitorial line rather than a full-time resident staff, a cellar laundry, tenant storage bins, and no elevator to maintain, inspect, or modernize. Recent statements show real estate taxes as the single largest expense by a wide margin, with repairs, insurance, and utilities well behind — the expense profile of a building whose fixed costs are mostly the City's.
The cooperative's compiled financial statements note that no reserve study has been performed and no schedule of remaining useful lives exists for the common property. That is common in buildings of this size and it is the right diligence question: for a 1913 masonry building, façade cycles under the FISP/Local Law 11 regime, the roof and parapet, and the boiler are the recurring capital items to price. The 1981 report flagged parapet repointing and corroded cap flashing at the east party wall; the 1987 asbestos survey found only non-friable pipe insulation, requiring no abatement. Confirm the current status of all of it, along with any open assessment, with management.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Sep 13, 2024 | 17 | $725,000 |
| Aug 2, 2024 | 4 | $602,500 |
| Oct 13, 2023 | 16 | $525,000 |
| May 31, 2022 | 18 | $550,000 |
| May 7, 2021 | 14 | $570,000 |
| Oct 21, 2019 | 21 | $585,000 |
Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 3-00254-0004) 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
Price the walk-up honestly, then price the floor. There is no elevator and no plan of record to add one. The right comparable set is the district's other five-story walk-up co-ops, adjusted for flight count.
Read the assessment history, not just the maintenance. The board has funded capital work through discrete special assessments carried to paid-in capital rather than through permanent maintenance increases. Ask for the last decade of assessments and any board-approved capital plan.
Confirm electrical capacity before you plan a renovation. Service was documented as inadequate at conversion; what has been upgraded since varies by apartment.
Understand the sublet queue before you buy as an investor. Three years of residency, board approval on every renewal, and a working cap of about six sublet apartments make this a poor fit for a rental strategy and a well-run building for owner-occupants.
What to know if you’re selling
Lead with carrying cost. A nearly retired underlying mortgage and a minimal staffing model produce monthlies that most district buildings cannot match. Put the numbers in the listing conversation early.
Document the renovation. In a building of identical floor plans, the finished apartment sets the price. Landmarks-clean alteration files and permitted electrical and plumbing work are the differentiators.
Name the location precisely. Joralemon between Henry and Clinton is a short walk to Borough Hall, Court Street, and the Joralemon Street park entrance — a daily-life case that reads better than "Brooklyn Heights" alone.
Bring the sublet policy to the table. A written, administered policy with a stated cap is an underwriting comfort for lenders and a credibility signal for buyers' attorneys.
Comparable buildings
If you're considering 151 Joralemon Street, also evaluate:
- 130 Clinton Street — Freehof's 1925 tower one block east; the elevator alternative on the same corridor
- 153 Henry Street — prewar co-op at Love Lane, similar scale and shareholder-run character
- 245 Henry Street — 1955 postwar co-op with garage and doorman; the full-service comparison a few blocks north
- 100 Remsen Street — 1949 postwar co-op on a ground lease; a very different balance-sheet profile worth understanding
- 68 Remsen Street (The Remsen) — H. I. Feldman's 1929 co-op around the corner; prewar with an elevator
- 60 Remsen Street — 1955 doorman co-op at Hicks and Grace Court Alley
- 1 Grace Court — mid-1920s co-op on the Heights' quietest cul-de-sac
- 142 Hicks Street — the same 19-to-20-unit scale in the North Heights, with an elevator
- 62 Montague Street (The Arlington) — Montrose Morris's 1887 apartment house; the district's other small prewar co-op idiom
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.
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