205 West 54th Street (The Albemarle)
205 West 54th Street, New York, NY 10019
- Year built
- 1903
- Type
- Cooperative
- Units
- 74
- Floors
- 12
- Landmark
- No
- Pets
- Permitted per listing records
- Financing
- 20 percent minimum down per listing records — liberal for a co-op; verify current requirements
The Albemarle is the rare Midtown West building where the value case and the story are equally strong. As real estate, it is a 74-unit, 24-hour-doorman pre-war cooperative trading in the mid-$800s per square foot — among the lowest pricing for full-service pre-war stock anywhere within a five-block radius of Carnegie Hall, Central Park, and the Broadway theaters. As history, it has lived at least seven names and one of the most colorful Prohibition chapters in Midtown.
The building went up in 1901–03 as the Hotel Carlton, one of dozens of apartment hotels racing skyward that year: eleven stories of brick, granite, and Indiana limestone designed by S.B. Ogden & Co. for the developer Andrew J. Kerwin, Jr., who took an apartment in his own building. The Beaux-Arts facade — stone balconies, carved ornament, mansard dormers over a severe two-story limestone base — survives essentially intact; architectural records have called it easily overlooked and frothy in the same breath. The name changed with nearly every operator: Carlton, Lyndemon, Belleview, Lyndemon again, Albemarle by 1916, Harding in 1921 (for the newly inaugurated president), Alba in 1930, and finally back to Albemarle.
The Harding years are the legend. Texas Guinan — the speakeasy queen whose 300 Club operated down the street — opened the Club Intime in the hotel's basement in the late 1920s; The New York Times covered its dramatic 1929 padlocking after a police raid. Its successor in the same space, the Club Abbey, was the scene of a January 1931 gangland brawl in which the mobster Dutch Schultz was shot in the shoulder — also covered by The New York Times. Hotel histories place Mae West, then staging her boundary-pushing Broadway productions, as a resident of the Harding in 1928. In 1936 the owners hired Emery Roth — by then the architect of the San Remo — to renovate the building into proper apartments, seven per floor, and the clientele settled into the theatrical-professional respectability that still suits the address. The cooperative conversion documents on file date from 1982; the building has been a co-op for roughly four decades.
Architecture and unit composition
The facade is the building's public asset: arched ground-floor windows, four two-story engaged columns binding the rusticated limestone base, banded brick-and-stone upper floors with pedimented window surrounds and quoins, balconies at the fifth and eighth floors, and the dormered mansard above the cornice. Inside, the Roth-era reorganization governs: roughly seven apartments per floor, predominantly studios, one-bedrooms, and two-bedrooms with pre-war bones — high ceilings, defined entries — though architectural records note that little ornamental hotel-era interior fabric survives. The scale suits primary residents and working professionals rather than trophy hunters; the two-bedroom lines are the building's largest standard product, and the basement commercial space that once held the Club Intime has housed a champagne bar in recent decades.
Building operations
This is a conventionally run full-service co-op: 24-hour doorman, live-in superintendent, central laundry, bike room, and storage, with no garage and no amenity floor — the carrying-cost profile stays lean as a result. The policy framework is primary-residence-oriented: no pieds-à-terre, subletting limited to two years out of every ten with board approval, pets permitted. The documented 20 percent minimum down payment is notably liberal for a Manhattan co-op and widens the qualified buyer pool. The offering plan is on file in The Roebling Research Library; current financial statements and house rules should be obtained through the managing agent during diligence.
Local Law 97
- 2024–2029 annual penalty
- $0 (under cap)
- 2030–2034 annual penalty
- $17,341/yr
- Per unit / month range
- $0 – $20
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 |
|---|---|---|
| May 15, 2025 | 11F | $520,000 |
| Apr 29, 2025 | 5A | $550,000 |
| Nov 29, 2024 | 6G | $573,000 |
| Nov 19, 2024 | 3E | $870,000 |
| Nov 12, 2024 | 2E | $915,000 |
| Jul 26, 2023 | 9C | $650,000 |
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 1-01026-0026) 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
This is a primary-residence building by design. The no-pied-à-terre policy and the two-in-ten sublet rule are screening mechanisms, and they work: the building reads as owner-occupied. Buyers seeking flexibility for investment or part-time use should look at the corridor's condos instead; buyers seeking a stable full-service home base at value pricing are the fit.
The 20 percent minimum down is a genuine outlier. Most Manhattan co-ops of this vintage require 25–50 percent down. Verify the current requirement, then run the Co-op Board Qualification Calculator — the building's liquidity and ratio expectations still apply.
Price the location honestly — it is the amenity. N/Q/R/W and B/D/E service within a block, the 1 train at Broadway, Carnegie Hall three blocks north, the park five blocks, MoMA and the theaters within a ten-minute walk. The trade-off is Midtown energy: this stretch of 54th is calmer than Seventh Avenue but it is not a residential side street in feel on show nights. Spend an evening on the block before offering.
Underwrite the pre-war envelope. A 1903 building carries 1903-building capital needs — facade cycles, roof, mechanicals. Have your attorney review recent financials, assessments, and the reserve position; we provide the offering plan from the Research Library as the baseline document.
Verify the fee stack. The flip tax is not documented in public records, and sublet fees and current application requirements should be confirmed with the managing agent before contract.
What to know if you’re selling
Use the history, precisely. Carlton-to-Albemarle, Texas Guinan, the Club Abbey, Mae West, the Emery Roth renovation — this is the best narrative inventory of any building on the block, and it is press-documented. Buyers in this price tier respond to story; tell it with dates, not adjectives.
Position against the right comparables. Your buyer is cross-shopping pre-war co-ops in the West 50s and 70s — not the condo towers. The pitch is the lowest-cost full-service pre-war entry within walking distance of the park and Carnegie Hall, with a liberal financing policy that widens the buyer pool.
Be candid about the policy framework. The no-pied-à-terre rule removes a buyer segment; pricing should reflect the primary-residence pool, and marketing should lead with what that pool wants — doorman service, transit, culture, carry discipline.
Comparable buildings
If you're considering 205 West 54th Street, also evaluate:
- The Osborne (205 West 57th Street) — the corridor's great Gilded Age co-op three blocks north; the prestige step-up
- Alwyn Court (180 West 58th Street) — landmarked François I pre-war co-op; the ornament benchmark
- The Wyoming (853 Seventh Avenue) — pre-war co-op peer at 55th Street, one block west
- Parc Vendome (340 West 57th Street) — larger-scale pre-war full-service co-op with amenities
- Carnegie House (100 West 57th Street) — post-war land-lease co-op; lower entry pricing, structurally different risk
- CitySpire (150 West 56th Street) — the condo alternative for buyers who need pied-à-terre or investment flexibility
The Roebling Team at The Albemarle
The Roebling Team at Compass works the West 50s — from the Billionaires' Row corridor to the pre-war co-op stock that surrounds it — as part of our broader Midtown practice. We publish this building profile because Albemarle buyers and sellers deserve building-specific intelligence — conversion documentation, policy framework, and honest comparables — not generic neighborhood commentary.
If you're considering a transaction at 205 West 54th Street, a 30-minute consultation is the right starting point.