155 West 71st Street
155 West 71st Street, New York, NY 10023
Lincoln Square, Upper West Side
BBL 1011437502 · BIN 1070529
- Year built
- 1940
- Type
- Condominium
- Units
- 54
- Floors
- 6
- Landmark
- Designated
- Pets
- One dog per unit for unit owners, with a narrow grandfather for units then housing two (a second dog may not be replaced). Renters may not keep a dog unless grandfathered by the board. A one-time $350 dog registration fee is payable with a purchase application or on acquiring a dog, with breed, weight, Health Department license and rabies documentation required. No dogs in the backyard. Pets must be carried or leashed in all common areas
Every recorded sale at this building, 2004–2024
Price-per-square-foot over time, the line- and floor-premium curves, and every recorded sale.
- Median $/sf
- $1,326
- Listing discount
- 2.4%
- Recorded sales
- 68
- On record
- 2004–2024
West 71st Street between Columbus and Amsterdam is a nineteenth-century blockfront — row houses, flats, brownstone and limestone, the fabric the Upper West Side / Central Park West Historic District was drawn to protect. In 1940, Pemberton Realties Company assembled four lots in the middle of it and had Jacob M. Felson build a hundred-foot-wide, six-story Moderne apartment house across them. It is the anomaly on the block, and fifty years later the Landmarks Preservation Commission designated it along with everything around it.
Felson is a name worth recognizing. He was one of the most prolific apartment-house architects working in the outer boroughs and Upper Manhattan through the 1920s and 1930s, and the streamlined brick manner he arrived at by the end of that run — horizontal banding, restrained massing, no applied ornament — is exactly what LPC's surveyors classified here as Moderne rather than Art Deco. The building is not a showpiece. It is a competent, legible example of a specific late-Depression apartment type, and the historic district now protects it as such.
The commercial life of the building is the more consequential story. It rented for forty-seven years. In 1986 a J-51 benefit attached to the property — the marker of a qualifying rehabilitation — and on June 17, 1987 the condominium declaration and map were recorded. First closings followed on July 15, and the association's audited statements date the commencement of operations to July 1, 1987. A second J-51 grant, initial year 1993 at a 90 percent abatement over fourteen years, carried further work. Both benefits are gone: Department of Finance J-51 records for these unit lots end at tax year 2010. That matters for underwriting. Buyers who have been shopping abated inventory elsewhere in Manhattan will find the tax line here fully mature, with no phase-out cliff ahead — a disadvantage against an abated building on day one, and an advantage in year five.
The building's own finances have moved in the right direction. A $500,000 bank loan taken in September 2015 to fund capital work — the façade program visible in Department of Buildings filings from 2015 and again in 2019 — was accelerated in four consecutive years and retired in full during 2020, five years ahead of maturity. The association ended that year with roughly $392,000 in segregated reserves and no debt, on a policy of setting aside about a tenth of operating expenses annually. For a small prewar condominium, that is disciplined.
The offsetting fact is concentration. The audited statements disclose that about 29 percent of revenue comes from one unit-owner entity. In a 54-unit building that is a large single position, and it has three practical consequences: a bloc vote in association governance, a rental share in the building that is higher than the unit count alone suggests, and a real risk that conventional lenders will flag the project on owner-occupancy or single-entity concentration tests. None of that makes the building unbuyable — it trades actively, and individual apartments have closed to individual purchasers in every recent year — but a buyer who learns it at the loan-commitment stage rather than at the offer stage has a problem.
Architecture and unit composition
One hundred feet of frontage, six stories, brick, on a 10,217-square-foot lot — 37,511 gross square feet in total. Divided over 54 residences that is roughly 680 gross square feet apiece, and the building's resale stock reflects it: studios, one-bedrooms and compact two-bedrooms are the core product, with larger apartments existing mainly where owners have combined or reconfigured. Department of Buildings filings record apartment-level reconfiguration across the years — added bedrooms, relocated partitions, full gut renovations — which is the ordinary life of a small prewar condominium and means condition varies widely apartment to apartment.
Zoning is R8B, with the building at 3.67 FAR against a 4.00 residential allowance. There is no meaningful expansion capacity, and the historic district would govern any attempt in any case. What the block gives instead is scale: six stories facing six-story neighbors, protected sightlines, and the light that comes with a hundred-foot frontage on a landmarked mid-block.
Apartments face the street or the rear yard. The rear backyard is a common amenity under the house rules, restricted to quiet recreation, with no smoking and no dogs.
Building operations
Full-time staffing with a superintendent and building staff, a third-party managing agent, an elevator, a laundry room, rentable private storage, and garbage and recycling closets on each floor. Move-ins run weekdays between 9:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. with a certificate of insurance, an application, a security deposit and a moving fee.
The capital record in Department of Buildings filings is consistent: interior repairs after a fire and water event affecting several apartments in 2010, an oil-to-gas burner conversion at the boiler in 2014, exterior façade repairs filed in 2015 with a heavy-duty sidewalk shed, and a further façade repair filing in 2019. The 2015 borrowing and the façade project expense in the association's 2020 statements line up with that program. The building is six stories, which places it outside the Local Law 11 façade inspection cycle that governs taller buildings — the façade work here was undertaken on the association's own initiative rather than under a compliance mandate.
Policy framework
This is a condominium, so the ownership framework is the permissive one: pieds-à-terre, LLC and trust purchasers, foreign buyers and leasing are all permitted, and the board's remedy on a sale is a right of first refusal rather than an approval.
Within that framework the house rules adopted in December 2017 are more specific than most, and buyers should read them:
Short-term rental is prohibited outright. No Airbnb or transient occupancy, and every lease must contain the building's no-smoking provision.
Dogs are limited to one per unit, and renters may not keep one at all absent a board grandfather. A $350 one-time registration fee applies, with veterinary and licensing documentation.
Smoking is permitted in units but heavily conditioned. Owners who smoke must install a door gasket and purchase an air purifier; if odors still migrate, a window exhaust fan or air conditioner on exhaust; if that fails, smoking in the unit is barred. Non-compliance carries a $250 monthly penalty.
Eighty percent floor coverage is required outside kitchens, baths, closets and foyers, and the board may require additional acoustic measures.
Alterations require a signed alteration agreement and a certificate of insurance before work begins, with contractors carrying licenses and insurance the association deems necessary, and the unit owner responsible for contractor damage. Anything touching the exterior additionally requires a Landmarks permit.
General violations carry a $250 per day penalty at the board's discretion, escalating if unremedied.
Local Law 97
- 2024–2029 annual penalty
- $0 (under cap)
- 2030–2034 annual penalty
- $8,605/yr
- Per unit / month range
- $0 – $13
Source: NYC LL84 benchmarking and PLUTO · The Roebling Research Library. City record last verified September 2026.
See full Local Law 97 analysis — emissions history, scenarios, methodology →Recent sales
The Gatsby House trades as a value entry to Lincoln Square: prewar bones, an elevator, a landmarked block, one avenue from Central Park and two from Lincoln Center, in a building of small apartments where the buyer is paying for location and condition rather than for services or square footage. Pricing sorts on floor, exposure, and the depth of the last renovation, with combined and reconfigured apartments occupying a distinctly different band from the original-footprint stock.
Compare it against the block's other prewar condominium conversions rather than against new development on Broadway or Amsterdam, where the amenity and tax profiles are not alike. And carry the fully-taxed status into the comparison honestly — the monthly number here has no abatement inside it, which flatters it against a building whose benefit is about to phase out and penalizes it against one whose benefit has years to run. Unit-level transaction history is maintained in The Roebling Research Library and shared with clients during diligence.
Recent closings at this building, curated by The Roebling Team research desk. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 3, 2024 | 4D | 2 BR · 2 BA · 968 sf | $1,275,000 | $1,317/sf | +2.0% |
| May 1, 2023 | 4B | 1 BR · 1 BA · 700 sf | $875,000 | $1,250/sf | +1.9% |
| Dec 8, 2022 | 5H | 435 sf | $425,000 | $977/sf | off-mkt |
| Oct 13, 2022 | 2B | 693 sf | $500,000 | $722/sf | off-mkt |
| Aug 15, 2022 | 1B | 1 BR · 1 BA · 480 sf | $770,000 | $1,604/sf | -3.1% |
| Jul 15, 2021 | 2E | 731 sf | $760,000 | $1,040/sf | off-mkt |
| Feb 1, 2021 | 2F | 1 BR · 1 BA · 625 sf | $695,000 | $1,112/sf | -0.7% |
| May 28, 2020 | 2C | 1 BR · 1 BA · 685 sf | $833,946 | $1,217/sf | +1.8% |
Market read. Most recent trades (2024) cleared a median $1,326/sf across 1 sale. Median listing discount 2.4% 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 1-01143-7502) 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; square footage from recorded condo declarations and offering plans.
What to know if you’re buying
Address the concentration before you address anything else. Roughly 29 percent of the association's revenue comes from a single unit-owner entity. Ask your mortgage banker to run the project against the lender's owner-occupancy and single-entity concentration limits before you go to contract, not after. If the building is not warrantable for your lender, you want to know it in week one.
The tax line is mature and there is nothing coming. Two J-51 grants ran and both burned off around 2010. Your taxes are your taxes. Model the true monthly with the True Monthly Carrying Cost Calculator.
Read the reserve position with the auditors' caveat attached. Roughly $392,000 segregated, funded at about 10 percent of operating expenses — but the required disclosure on future major repairs was omitted, and there is no published reserve study. Ask the managing agent what capital work is scheduled and whether any assessment is contemplated.
The debt story is good and worth confirming as current. The 2015 capital loan was retired in 2020, five years early. Confirm with the managing agent that no new borrowing has been taken since the most recent statements you are given.
If you intend to rent the apartment, read the rules first. Leasing is permitted, short-term rental is not, your tenant cannot keep a dog, and the lease must carry the no-smoking clause. Investors who skip this find out later.
Landmarks governs the exterior. Windows and anything visible from the street require a permit within the Upper West Side / Central Park West Historic District.
What to know if you’re selling
Sell the block and the bones. A 1940 Felson Moderne building on a landmarked West 71st Street blockfront, one avenue off Central Park, is a specific proposition. Buyers who want prewar character with an elevator at this price point are a real and identifiable pool.
Get ahead of the lender question. The concentration disclosure is in the audited financials and a competent buyer's lender will find it. Have the current owner-occupancy figures and the association's questionnaire responses ready so a financed buyer does not stall.
Lead with the balance sheet. Debt retired in 2020, five years ahead of maturity; reserves segregated and funded on policy; no delinquent assessments in the most recent audited year on file. That is a better financial story than most small prewar condominiums can tell.
Condition sets the price. In a building of compact apartments the renovation is most of the value. Run the Renovation Cost Calculator before deciding whether to sell as-is.
Comparable buildings
If you're considering 155 West 71st Street, also evaluate:
- 119 West 71st Street — cooperative on the same landmarked blockfront, the closest like-for-like on location
- 235 West 71st Street (The Lucania) — prewar condominium a few blocks west, similar conversion profile
- 267 West 71st Street — small prewar cooperative on the same street
- 59 West 71st Street — cooperative closer to Central Park West, the prestige step-up on the same street
- 135 West 70th Street (The Pythian) — the landmark condominium conversion one block south
- 155 West 70th Street — condominium directly one block south, comparable scale
- 105 West 70th Street (The Brownstones) — cooperative alternative for buyers weighing tenure
- 120 West 72nd Street (Harsen House) — the new-construction condominium on the same tax block, at a materially higher price point
- 201 West 72nd Street (The Alexandria) — full-service condominium alternative a block north
- The Dorilton — the individual landmark at the block's western end, for context on the neighborhood's prewar top tier
The neighborhood
For the full corridor — architecture, schools, transit, and pricing across Upper West Side — read The Roebling Team Guide to Upper West Side.
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.
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