The River Arts (159-34 Riverside Drive West)
158-18, 159-00 and 159-34 Riverside Drive West, New York, NY 10032
BBL 1021350060 · BIN 1063300
- Year built
- 1941
- Type
- Cooperative
- Units
- 244
- Landmark
- No
Own an apartment here? See what it would sell for.
A Private Pricing Opinion — what your apartment at The River Arts 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.
The River Arts is a 244-apartment prewar complex on the Hudson side of Washington Heights that became a cooperative through the standard New York route: a private rental conversion. That point needs saying because buildings of this size and vintage in upper Manhattan are often Mitchell-Lama or HDFC cooperatives, where income caps and resale formulas control who can buy and what a seller keeps. The River Arts is neither. Its sponsor, Le-Tam Realty Corp., filed a conversion plan dated April 15, 1982, and the cooperative took title in May 1983. The corporation's lenders have been conventional ones: a purchase-money mortgage from the sponsor at closing, then Citibank, Deutsche Bank Berkshire Mortgage, First Republic Bank and, since December 2021, National Cooperative Bank.
Its regulated history is rent stabilization. The 1982 plan was a non-eviction plan: tenants who chose not to buy could stay as rent-stabilized tenants for as long as they paid rent and kept to their leases. At the date of the plan, 40 apartments had been decontrolled on vacancy; the rest were rent-regulated. The apartments that stayed with the sponsor became "unsold shares," rented out and sold over time, which is why the sponsor still held a substantial position decades later.
That position has been shrinking. At December 31, 2019, the sponsor held 29,192 of the corporation's 96,173 shares — about 30 percent — per the audited statements on file. Entities that hold the unsold shares were still selling apartments to outside buyers in 2025, per ACRIS. The resale market is open: shares transfer to unrelated buyers every year, and the 2024–2026 closings sit in the range of market-rate Washington Heights co-ops.
Architecture and unit composition
The complex fills a single deep lot running north from West 158th Street along Riverside Drive West. The offering plan divides it into three sections, but the city records it as one building. PLUTO counts six floors. HPD registers seven legal stories, and apartment numbers run to the seventh floor (7D, 7E); the difference probably comes from the site's slope and how each agency counts floors, so buyers should check a specific apartment's floor against the stacking plan rather than PLUTO.
The recorded apartment lines run from A through at least M on some floors, and some apartments carry a section suffix (for example, 3K-90 and 5H-90 in the 90 building). Combinations exist — ACRIS records a 6D/6E combined apartment. The plan's Schedule A sets share allocations apartment by apartment across the three sections. The rooms-per-apartment mix is not reliably legible in the scanned schedule, so no breakdown is given here.
The architect of the 1941 building is not firmly documented in the public records reviewed or in the plan on file.
Building operations
The corporation runs the building itself. Its 2019 audited statements describe it as self-managed, with a superintendent, doormen, porters and maintenance staff covered by a Local 32BJ contract. It collects income from maintenance, the garage, storage and lockers, the laundry, fitness-room memberships and sublet surcharges. Parking is the largest income line after maintenance.
Garage lease. The 1982 plan leased the garage, the basement storage and rehearsal rooms, and eight storage rooms to the sponsor, with renewal options running to 2072. The plan also reserved the sponsor's unused floor-area (air) rights for use on adjoining property. Buyers should ask whether the garage lease is still in force and on what terms, and whether any air rights remain outstanding. Both are standing claims on the property, and the material on file does not settle either one.
Financing. In 2019 the corporation replaced its $5.5 million first mortgage with a $7 million ten-year interest-only loan at 4.25 percent and opened a $500,000 line of credit. In December 2021 it refinanced again with an $11 million first mortgage from National Cooperative Bank, per ACRIS; that loan was later assigned into a 2022 commercial mortgage securitization. The public record does not show the current loan's rate and maturity. They are the most important numbers in the current financial statements and should be read there.
Capital posture. Between 2014 and 2016 the corporation took out a $350,000 note to connect the boiler to the utility's gas main. The 2019 statements note that no recent reserve study had been done, and that the corporation levies a special assessment every year to fund regular operations. A recurring operating assessment is part of the real monthly cost. Buyers should add it to the quoted maintenance.
Policy framework
- Subletting: Permitted with board consent, which the proprietary lease lets the board grant or withhold; the corporation collects a sublet surcharge. Holders of unsold shares may sublet without board consent.
- Board review: The bylaws provide for an admissions committee to interview proposed purchasers and subtenants, with decisions given as "approve" or "disapprove" only.
- Pets: The house rules in the original plan contemplate dogs, which must be carried or leashed in public areas. Confirm the current pet policy.
- Flip tax, financing ceiling, minimum down payment, pied-à-terre, trust and LLC purchases: Not documented in the material on file. Get them from the corporation's management office and the current purchase application.
Recent sales
The River Arts trades as an open-market prewar co-op, priced per room, and apartments sell every year. Recorded share transfers since the 2000s show resale prices tracking the broader Washington Heights co-op market, with no sign of the resale caps that mark HDFC and Mitchell-Lama stock. Inside the complex, apartment size, floor, the section, combined layouts and renovation condition drive the spread. Apartments sold directly by holders of unsold shares, often after a long rental occupancy, are a separate category from shareholder resales and should be compared that way. Market statements here are indexed to 2025, the last complete year.
Unit-level transaction history is maintained in The Roebling Research Library and shared with clients during diligence.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Jul 17, 2026 | 3A | $1,100,000 |
| Jun 23, 2025 | 5F | $750,000 |
| Aug 7, 2024 | 5D | $755,000 |
| Aug 1, 2024 | 2E | $910,000 |
| Jul 3, 2024 | 6D/6E | $1,465,000 |
| Apr 26, 2024 | 7E | $1,100,000 |
Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 1-02135-0060) 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.
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
Confirm the tenure is what it appears to be. It is a market-rate cooperative: no income test, no resale formula, no city regulatory agreement. What remains of the rent-regulated past is the sponsor block. If the apartment you want is held as unsold shares, ask whether it is occupied, by whom, and under what lease or stabilized tenancy. A non-purchasing tenant under a non-eviction plan cannot be removed to make way for a buyer.
Read the loan, not just the maintenance. The $11 million 2021 mortgage is the corporation's largest single obligation. Its maturity and rate set the refinancing risk. Ask for the latest audited statements and the loan's terms.
Add the annual assessment to the monthly cost. The corporation funds part of each year's operations through a special assessment. Get the current figure and add it to the quoted maintenance.
Ask about the garage lease and the air rights. Both came out of the 1982 plan and both affect the property's economics.
Expect a full board process. Board package, admissions interview and the usual co-op financial review apply. Ask the management office for the financing ceiling and minimum down payment before bidding.
What to know if you’re selling
Lead with the tenure. Buyers who search upper Manhattan co-ops meet many HDFC listings. Say plainly, with the plan and the lender history behind it, that this is an open-market cooperative.
Have the financial package ready. The 2021 refinancing, the recurring assessment and the sponsor's remaining position are the three questions a careful buyer's attorney will raise. Answer them in the listing packet, not at the board-package stage.
Price against shareholder resales. Sales of occupied sponsor-held apartments are a different kind of trade and will understate what a renovated shareholder apartment is worth.
Comparable buildings
- Castle Village — George F. Pelham Jr.'s 1938–39 river-edge cooperative complex in Hudson Heights; the closest match in scale and era
- Hudson View Gardens (116 Pinehurst Avenue) — Pelham's 1920s garden co-op complex; multi-building, market-rate
- The Grinnell (800 Riverside Drive) — prewar Riverside Drive cooperative a short walk south; an HDFC structure, useful as the contrast in tenure
- Park Terrace Gardens — Albert Goldhammer's 1940 Inwood cooperative complex of the same vintage
- 100 Bennett Avenue — Horace Ginsbern's 1939 Washington Heights cooperative
- Lafayette Gardens (330 Haven Avenue) — large Hudson Heights cooperative with a comparable unit count
- 555 Edgecombe Avenue — prewar Sugar Hill cooperative on the ridge to the east
More Washington Heights buildings
- 100 Bennett Avenue — 1939 co-op by Horace Ginsbern & Associates
- Castle Village, 110-200 Cabrini Boulevard — 1938 co-op by George F. Pelham
- 116 Pinehurst Avenue (Hudson View Gardens) — 1923 co-op by George F. Pelham
- 330 Haven Avenue (Lafayette Gardens) — 1951 co-op
- The Bennett (736 West 187th Street) — 2003 condominium by SLCE Architects
- 800 Riverside Drive (The Grinnell) — 1910 co-op by Schwartz & Gross
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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