233 East 70th Street
233 East 70th Street, New York, NY 10021
Lenox Hill, Upper East Side
BBL 1014257501 · BIN 1072227
- Year built
- 1957
- Type
- Cooperative
- Units
- 81
- Floors
- 16
- Landmark
- No
- Amenities
- Full-time doorman, laundry room, fitness room, bicycle and private storage per listing and management-sourced records; confirm current facilities and any user fees with the managing agent
- Flip tax
- $40 per share, payable by the seller at closing, per management-sourced records. A per-share flip tax scales with apartment size rather than with price, which makes it comparatively favourable on a strong sale and comparatively heavy on a weak one. A closing fee of $700 plus five cents per share also runs to the seller
Every recorded sale at this building, 2004–2025
Price-per-square-foot over time, the line- and floor-premium curves, and every recorded sale.
- Median $/sf
- $894
- Listing discount
- 2.2%
- Recorded sales
- 121
- On record
- 2004–2025
The structure is the story. On paper this is a condominium, and the Department of Finance carries the residential portion as a single condominium unit holding roughly ninety percent of the common interest. That unit is owned by a cooperative corporation, and what an apartment purchaser acquires is shares of stock and a proprietary lease. The recorded evidence is unambiguous: ACRIS shows more than a hundred and thirty share transfers against lot 1002, at open-market prices, to unrelated buyers, in a continuous run from the 1990s to the current year. Fourteen ordinary deeds appear on the same lot, and they belong to the unit itself rather than to apartments.
The practical consequence is that this building transacts as a cooperative. There is a board package and an interview. There is a financing ceiling set by the board rather than by the lender. There is a flip tax. A buyer who arrives expecting condominium mechanics — no approval, unrestricted sublets, purchase in the name of a limited liability company — is looking at the wrong instrument, and a lender who opens the file as a condominium will restart it at underwriting. Tell the lender the structure at the first conversation.
The second thing worth knowing is what the cooperative owns beyond the apartments. The condominium has three units, and the corporation now holds two of them: the Residential Unit it has owned since 1987, and the small professional unit it purchased from a private owner in April 2015. The Second Avenue retail unit remains in unrelated hands. That matters because commercial income inside a co-op is a cushion against maintenance increases, and because the retail unit's owner is a co-member of the condominium board with rights the cooperative does not control. Both are worth reading in the condominium by-laws.
The third is that this is a genuinely small balance sheet. The corporation's underlying debt is modest and its tax benefits are gone. There is no complicated program to underwrite here, which is a real advantage over the ground-leased and abatement-dependent buildings a buyer at this price will otherwise be shown.
Architecture and unit composition
The building is a postwar brick mid-rise of sixteen or seventeen stories, depending on which record you consult, occupying a hundred feet of frontage on East 70th Street with retail wrapping the Second Avenue corner. Its architecture is the competent commercial idiom of its decade rather than a designed statement — a flat brick elevation, a canopied entrance, regular fenestration. The building is credited to H.I. Feldman, one of the most prolific apartment-house architects working in postwar Manhattan.
Six apartment lines repeat up the building, designated P, R, S, T, U and V, running from studios and one-bedrooms through combined two- and three-bedroom apartments where owners have joined adjoining units. The share transfer record shows those combinations plainly. Ceiling heights and layouts are of their period: efficient, level, with adequate light on the higher floors and a Second Avenue exposure on one side. Roughly 89,000 square feet of the building's ninety-six thousand is residential, with about 6,400 square feet of retail and a small office component — a ratio that puts real commercial rent underneath a small residential corporation.
Building operations
The building runs a full-time door staff with a laundry room, fitness room, and bicycle and private storage per listing and management-sourced records.
Capital posture. The cooperative's underlying financing has been small and conservative throughout. ACRIS records a $3.1 million underlying mortgage placed with a cooperative lender in April 2005, and a replacement $3.0 million underlying mortgage with the same lender recorded March 26, 2026, with an accompanying assignment of leases and rents and a Fannie Mae subordination. Against eighty-one to ninety apartments that is on the order of thirty-five thousand dollars of underlying debt per unit — low by Manhattan cooperative standards. The corporation also carries the professional unit it bought in 2015 as an asset. Confirm the current balance, the maturity and any live assessment with the managing agent; neither reserves nor assessments are public.
Tax benefits. The Residential Unit carried J-51 benefits from a single grant initiated in 1995 — a fourteen-year exemption with a ninety percent abatement computed on roughly $117,200 of qualifying alteration cost. The abatement ran through tax year 2006 and is fully burned off. No J-51, 421-a, PILOT or other program benefit is in force on any lot in this condominium today, and the Department of Finance shows only a nominal exemption on the residential unit, reflecting individual shareholder exemptions rather than anything held by the corporation. Underwrite a full, unabated tax line.
Policy framework
Flip tax. $40 per share, seller-paid at closing, plus a closing fee of $700 and five cents per share. Because the charge is per share rather than per dollar, ask for the apartment's share count early — it is the only input you need to price the fee exactly.
Subletting. Permitted after one year of ownership, on a minimum two-year lease, with unlimited annual renewals subject to board approval each year. Subtenants may not keep dogs. The corporate sublet fee is 22.5 percent of monthly maintenance for the first two years and 30 percent thereafter, billed monthly to the shareholder. A sublet application, credit check, and move-in and move-out fees apply.
Board process. A full purchase application and interview, with a separate financing fee where the purchase is financed.
Not published: the financing ceiling, minimum down payment, post-closing liquidity requirement, pied-à-terre practice, treatment of trusts and limited liability companies, guarantors and co-purchasers, and the shareholder pet policy. The only pet rule we can document is the prohibition on subtenants keeping dogs. Obtain the rest in writing from the managing agent.
Local Law 97
- 2024–2029 annual penalty
- $6,559/yr
- 2030–2034 annual penalty
- $76,099/yr
- Per unit / month range
- $7 – $78
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 SWARMP — Safe With A Repair and Maintenance Program: the engineer identified conditions requiring monitoring or repair before the next inspection cycle. The scope, timeline, and how the building funds the work are building-specific — we review the filings and board materials 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
This is an active, liquid line of inventory. ACRIS records a continuous run of share transfers on the residential unit — several in most years, with a heavier flow in 2021 and 2022 — spanning studios through combined apartments. Pricing is quoted per room in this market. Small apartments here sit at the accessible end of Lenox Hill, and the combinations sit well above it; the spread within the building is wide, and a comparable drawn from the wrong tier will mislead.
Three things drive value inside the building: floor and exposure, whether the apartment is a single unit or a combination, and renovation condition. Against the neighbourhood, the building's advantages are its low underlying leverage, its permissive sublet policy relative to most Lenox Hill cooperatives, and a per-share flip tax that does not scale with price. Its disadvantage is the structural confusion the condop wrapper creates with lenders, which is manageable but must be managed. Index any market statement to the last complete year rather than the partial current one. 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 10, 2025 | 11P | 2 BR · 2 BA | $1,025,000 | +2.6% | |
| Jun 11, 2025 | 12RS | 3 BR · 2 BA | $1,440,000 | -2.4% | |
| May 21, 2025 | 11S | 2 BR · 1 BA | $862,500 | -3.1% | |
| May 5, 2025 | 11U | 2 BR · 2 BA | $920,000 | -3.1% | |
| Jun 5, 2024 | 6R | 1 BA | $415,000 | +0.0% | |
| May 17, 2024 | 14P | 4 BR · 3 BA · 2,300 sf | $2,150,000 | $935/sf | -28.2% |
| May 6, 2024 | 3U | 2 BR · 2 BA | $975,000 | -2.4% | |
| Apr 21, 2023 | 3PR | 3 BR · 3 BA | $1,570,000 | -10.3% |
Market read. $/sf is measured on the latest sales with reliable square footage (2024): a median $894/sf across 1 sale. The building has traded as recently as 2025. Median listing discount 2.2% 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 1-01425-7501) 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
Say the word "condop" to your lender on day one. The tax lot is classified as a condominium and the apartment is co-op shares. Lenders that open the file on the wrong product lose two weeks.
Ask for the share count before you model closing costs. The flip tax is $40 a share and the closing fee adds five cents a share. Both are fixed by the apartment, not by the price.
Get the board's financing ceiling and liquidity requirement in writing. Neither is published, and neither is inferable from the building's small underlying mortgage.
Read the condominium by-laws, not just the co-op's. You are buying into a corporation that is one of three members of a condominium, alongside a privately held retail unit. Common charges, voting and the allocation of building-wide costs sit in that document.
Confirm the unit count and the apartment's line. City records disagree with each other. If square footage or share allocation matters to your valuation, verify it with the managing agent rather than with a listing.
What to know if you’re selling
Explain the structure in the setup, not in the contract. A buyer or a lender who discovers the condop wrapper at underwriting will slow the deal. A buyer told at first showing will not.
Lead with the sublet policy. One year of ownership, a two-year lease, and renewals thereafter is more flexible than most Lenox Hill cooperatives allow, and it widens the buyer pool considerably.
Have the financials ready. Low underlying debt and a burned-off J-51 make for a clean, easily explained financial picture. Put it in front of the buyer's attorney early.
Comparable buildings
If you're considering 233 East 70th Street, also evaluate:
- 233 East 69th Street — a condop from the same sponsor family one block south; the closest structural comparison in the neighbourhood
- 301 East 69th Street — another condop from the same 1980s conversion programme
- 220 East 65th Street — the Concorde, a large Lenox Hill alternative on a different block
- 130 East 63rd Street — a Lenox Hill condop with a notably liberal policy stack; useful for comparing what a condop can permit
- 1175 York Avenue — York River House, a flexible Lenox Hill condop at larger scale
- 212 East 70th Street — the same block of East 70th Street, different tenure
- 310 East 70th Street — postwar cooperative comparison further east
- 245 East 72nd Street — larger postwar building two blocks north
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 233 East 70th Street?
Request a private building brief with the relevant comparable sales, current and off-market availability, and an apartment-specific view of value.
Own an apartment here? See what it would sell for.
A Private Pricing Opinion — what your apartment at 233 East 70th Street 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.