215 East 79th Street
215 East 79th Street, New York, NY 10075
Yorkville, Upper East Side
BBL 1015250009 · BIN 1048511
- Year built
- 1947
- Type
- Cooperative
- Units
- 87
- Floors
- 15
- Landmark
- No
- Amenities
- Attended lobby with doorman, live-in superintendent, central laundry, basement storage, and resident access to the roof area at the top of the building and to the rear yard under procedures set by the board. There is no garage, no gym and no health club — this is a straightforward full-service building rather than an amenity building
- Pets
- Dogs permitted, no more than two per residence; no exotic pets; the board is the sole judge of nuisance
Every recorded sale at this building, 2003–2026
Bedroom-by-bedroom medians, the full transfer record, and how units trade against ask.
- 1BR median
- $925K
- Recent range
- $750K – $2.9M
- Listing discount
- 7.8%
- Recorded transfers
- 93
This is a 1947 building, and the date does real work. It sits on the far side of the wartime break — steel and concrete rather than the 1920s masonry vocabulary, but planned before the postwar apartment house had settled into its low-ceilinged efficiency. The offering plan on file names Boak & Raad as the architects, the later practice of the firm that had built its reputation as Boak & Paris across the prewar Upper East Side and West Side. In 1947 that lineage still shows: fifteen storeys and a penthouse, a mid-block plot just under 100 feet wide, and 287 rooms across 85 apartments as originally offered — an average of more than three rooms per apartment, which is a prewar-scale ratio rather than a postwar one.
The building converted early. The cooperative corporation was formed on March 26, 1969 and took title two days later, which puts 215 East 79th Street among the first wave of Manhattan conversions, well ahead of the 1980s boom that produced most of the neighbourhood's cooperative stock. Early conversions tend to have particular characteristics — a share structure sized to 1969 valuations, a long institutional memory, and a house-rule culture that has accreted rather than been drafted fresh — and this building has all three.
The most useful correction we can offer a buyer here concerns the unit count, because three different official-looking numbers circulate. City data says 87. The offering plan said 85 apartments. The audited financial statements say 84 residential units, two professional units and one superintendent's unit. Only the last of those is both current and internally consistent: 84 plus 2 plus 1 is 87, so the city's 87 is not wrong, it is simply counting the professional units and the superintendent's apartment as units. There are 84 apartments on the certificate — and fewer than that in practice, because combinations have been filed steadily. Recorded merges include 13A with 13B in 2005, 3D with 3E in 2016, 8A with 8B in 2017, 15B with 15C in 2019, and 8E with 8F in 2025. Line letters at this building are therefore an unreliable guide to layout; every floor plan has to be read on its own.
The financial shape of the building is worth stating plainly, because it cuts both ways. On the liability side it is conservative to a degree that is genuinely unusual: roughly $3.1 million of underlying debt across 84 apartments, interest-only, swapped to a fixed 2.631 percent in January 2021 on a ten-year term. Very few Upper East Side cooperatives locked a rate that low for that long. On the asset side, reserves of roughly $433,000 are thin for a 1947 building with a recurring façade obligation, no reserve study has been done, and the governing documents do not require the corporation to accumulate reserve funds at all. The auditors note the omission. The practical consequence is that capital work at this building tends to be funded when it arrives, by assessment or by drawing the credit line, rather than out of a standing reserve.
Architecture and unit composition
Fifteen storeys and a penthouse in brick, mid-block, on a plot just under 100 feet wide and just over 100 feet deep. The building sits back from Third Avenue by roughly 200 feet, which is the position that governs its light: the lower floors are enclosed by the block's fabric, the upper floors clear it, and the penthouse level and its terraces sit above everything nearby. The house rules contemplate terraces, penthouse terraces, and roof plantings under written agreement, which is a reliable signal that outdoor space exists on the upper lines and is regulated rather than incidental.
Apartment composition follows the 1947 plan and its subsequent editing. As offered, 85 apartments and 287 rooms; today, 84 on paper and fewer in fact, with combinations concentrated on the mid and upper floors. Original apartments in a building of this vintage carry defined foyers, separated kitchens and real closet volume — stock that renovates well but that also means most trading inventory falls into one of two clearly distinct conditions: unrenovated original, or comprehensively combined and rebuilt.
Two ground-floor professional units complete the plan. They are owned by the corporation and leased out, they generate roughly $200,000 a year, and they bring medical and professional visitors into the lobby — the house rules address this directly, prohibiting patients and clients from waiting in the lobby.
Building operations
Full service at a modest scale. A doorman announcing guests at the inner lobby, a live-in superintendent, a union staff covered by the Local 32BJ collective bargaining agreement, a central laundry, basement storage, and resident access to the roof area at the top of the building and to the rear yard under board-set procedures. There is no garage, no gym and no pool. Payroll and benefits run close to $770,000 a year against total operating expenses of roughly $1 million — a labour-heavy cost base typical of a small full-service house, and the reason maintenance here is more sensitive to the 32BJ contract cycle than to utilities.
Capital work in recent cycles has covered exterior repairs, plumbing upgrades, elevator upgrades and HVAC equipment, and the boiler was converted to gas in 2012 with a stainless chimney lining. The Local Law 11 rhythm is visible in the permit record: heavy-duty sidewalk sheds filed in 2000, 2004, 2022 and again in April 2026, with lintel replacement, masonry repair and waterproofing in 2004. One recent year also carried significant water-damage repair work substantially offset by insurance proceeds. A buyer should ask specifically what the 2026 shed is supporting and whether that scope is funded, assessed or financed.
Policy framework
The policy details are set out above. Three of them carry consequences a buyer or seller should weigh before anything else.
Subletting is a hardship regime, not a seasoning-and-fee regime. The demonstrated-absence requirement, the two-year cap and the 25 percent maintenance fee together mean this is an owner-occupant building and should be underwritten as one.
The washer/dryer rule is a condition of sale, not merely a house rule. No new machines are approved, and an existing machine must be removed at the shareholder's expense before the corporation consents to a transfer. Surface it before a listing goes live, not at contract.
The smoking prohibition lives in the proprietary lease. Because the shareholders adopted it as a lease amendment in 2016 rather than as a board rule, it is stronger in effect and harder to reverse than the policies most neighbouring buildings have adopted.
Alterations — structural work, plumbing and heating changes, electrical additions, new windows, air-conditioning devices and non-standard floor coverings — all require written consent under a formal alteration agreement, with work hours limited to 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on weekdays.
Not published: the maximum financing percentage, the minimum down payment, the post-closing liquidity requirement, and the board's posture on pied-à-terre purchases, trusts, limited liability companies, co-purchasers, guarantors and parental gifts. All are board-set. Ask the managing agent for the current requirements in writing.
Local Law 97
- 2024–2029 annual penalty
- $0 (under cap)
- 2030–2034 annual penalty
- $0 (under cap)
- Per unit / month range
- —
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 →Facade safety — Local Law 11
The latest available filing classified the facade as Unsafe — conditions requiring corrective action, which under FISP means a protective sidewalk shed and repairs. Review the subsequent filings, the repair status, and the building’s board and financial materials — we pull the repair scope and funding picture for you.
How to read this, and where it comes from
QEWI = Qualified Exterior Wall Inspector — the licensed engineer the city requires to sign the report (the independent expert, not the managing agent).
Penalties shown are amounts DOB assessed against filings on record across 2005–10 to 2025–30. 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 record last verified September 2026.
Recent sales
Pricing at a share-ownership building of this size is best read per room and against the share allocation rather than per square foot, and the share structure here is compact — 28,160 shares across 84 apartments — so per-share comparisons to larger conversions need normalising before they mean anything. Two building-level facts drive the carrying-cost comparison. The commercial rent from the two professional units offsets a meaningful share of operating cost, and the underlying mortgage is small and fixed at a low rate into the 2030s, so the corporation's fixed charges are unusually well insulated from rate movement. Against that, reserves are thin and there is no reserve study, which means assessment risk rather than debt-service risk is the variable to underwrite. The restrictive sublet regime and the washer/dryer prohibition narrow the buyer pool to owner-occupants, which tends to produce a steadier but slower market than a comparably located condominium. Unit-level transaction history is maintained in The Roebling Research Library and shared with clients during diligence.
Recent transfers 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jul 13, 2026 | 12B | 1 BR · 1 BA · 950 sf | $750,000 | $789/sf | -10.7% |
| Jun 15, 2026 | 6F | 1 BR · 1 BA · 900 sf | $775,000 | $861/sf | -13.4% |
| Apr 24, 2026 | 12EF | 2 BR · 2 BA | $1,710,000 | +3.6% | |
| Feb 28, 2025 | 8E | 1 BA · 586 sf | $540,000 | $922/sf | -6.1% |
| Feb 11, 2025 | 4F | 1 BR · 1 BA · 925 sf | $925,000 | $1,000/sf | -2.6% |
| Sep 17, 2024 | 13AB | 3 BR · 3 BA · 2,366 sf | $2,900,000 | $1,226/sf | -12.1% |
| Nov 1, 2023 | 12A | 2 BR · 2 BA | $1,300,000 | -13.3% | |
| Apr 28, 2023 | 4DE | 3 BR · 2.5 BA · 1,550 sf | $1,600,000 | $1,032/sf | -3.0% |
Market read. Most recent trades (2026) cleared a median $802/sf across 2 sales. Median listing discount 2.6% 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 1-01525-0009) 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 on co-ops is not officially recorded, figures shown are approximate.
What to know if you’re buying
Assume you will live here. The sublet policy is a hardship policy, not a rental policy. If there is any prospect that you will need to let the apartment within a few years, this is the wrong building and it is better to know that before you spend on diligence.
Ask about the washer and dryer before you fall in love with the apartment. No new machines are approved, and an existing machine has to come out before the board consents to a transfer. If the apartment you are seeing has one, ask when it was installed and under what agreement.
Get the four unpublished numbers in writing. Maximum financing, minimum down, post-closing liquidity, and the debt-to-income ceiling. None are public. They decide whether your offer works.
Read the reserve position honestly. The underlying mortgage is excellent — interest-only, fixed at 2.631 percent, ten-year term from January 2021. The reserve fund is not. Your attorney should ask what the current sidewalk shed is supporting, whether an assessment has been voted or discussed, and what the board's plan is for the professional-unit leases whose scheduled base rents have run out.
Note the professional units. Two ground-floor offices operate in the building and their income is a real part of the budget. That means lobby traffic during business hours and it means the corporation carries commercial re-letting risk.
The block matters. East 79th between Second and Third is unlandmarked Yorkville: no historic district, no designation, and the Second Avenue subway a short walk east. Walk it at the hour you would actually come home.
What to know if you’re selling
Surface the washer/dryer condition on day one. If a machine is in the apartment it must be removed before the board will consent to the transfer. Discovering that at contract costs time and leverage; disclosing it at listing costs nothing.
Market to owner-occupants. The sublet regime, the smoke-free lease amendment and the pet cap define the buyer. Marketing this apartment to an investor or a part-time resident wastes showings.
Lead with the underlying mortgage. A fixed 2.631 percent interest-only loan running into the 2030s is a genuine, verifiable advantage that most competing buildings cannot claim. Put it in front of the buyer's attorney with the audited statements.
Budget the flip tax. 1.5 percent of the gross sales price comes out of your side. Run the Seller Closing Cost Calculator with it included before you set a reserve price.
Price condition, not the line letter. After five decades of combinations, no two apartments on a floor are necessarily comparable. Run the Renovation Cost Calculator against the honest condition story.
Comparable buildings
If you're considering 215 East 79th Street, also evaluate:
- 229 East 79th Street — the 1930 prewar cooperative on the same block; the closest like-for-like in tenure and scale
- 1523 Second Avenue — the 1957 cooperative at the corner of the same block
- 201 East 79th Street (1391 Third Avenue) — the 1963 cooperative at the Third Avenue corner
- 180 East 79th Street — the 1929–1930 prewar cooperative west of Lexington; the prestige step-up on the same street
- 333 East 79th Street — a 1961 two-building cooperative complex under a single apartment corporation
- 200 East 78th Street — mid-1960s full-service cooperative one block south
- 205 East 78th Street — late-1920s prewar cooperative converted in the 1980s
- 201 East 83rd Street — Saxon Towers; the larger 1964 cooperative alternative to the north
- 300 East 79th Street — the ground-up condominium on the same street; the deed-ownership alternative
The neighborhood
For the full corridor — architecture, schools, transit, and pricing across Upper East Side — read The Roebling Team Guide to Upper East Side.
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.
Considering a move at 215 East 79th Street?
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