235 East 73rd Street (Eastgate)

Thirteen floors of brown brick on a 100-foot frontage, roughly 89,000 square feet of building on a 10,216-square-foot lot. The plan produces small-to-medium prewar layouts — studios and one-bedrooms in the lettered lines, two- and three-bedrooms in the assembled apartments — with prewar proportions, defined foyers and real closets. The building's history is one of steady consolidation: the gap between the 85 apartments recorded at conversion and the roughly 74 counted today is the record of decades of two-into-one merges, and Department of Buildings filings at this address are dominated by apartment-level combination and reconfiguration work.

For a buyer, that history is an option with a price. Whether a given apartment sits next to a combinable neighbor, and whether the board has approved similar merges recently, is a real feature and should be researched at the specific line rather than assumed at the building level.

Tax history. The Department of Finance J-51 record shows three separate grants at this lot: one initiated in 1991 against roughly $60,100 of qualifying alteration cost, a second initiated in 1992 against roughly $128,600, and a third initiated in 1997 against roughly $107,000 — each a 90 percent abatement running on a twelve-year schedule extended to fourteen. The first two were consumed in tax year 2002; the last ran through tax year 2008 and the record ends there. There is no J-51 benefit today and no building-wide exemption on the lot. The only exemptions carried on the assessment roll are individual shareholder benefits — the co-op and condominium tax abatement and veterans' and seniors' exemptions — which the corporation receives and passes through to eligible shareholders, and which totalled roughly $143,000 in 2024 per the audited financials. Underwrite full unabated taxes. Real estate taxes were 39.4 percent of total operating expenses in 2024, which is what a prewar Upper East Side co-op with no abatement looks like from the inside.

This is the sharpest difference from 225 East 73rd Street next door, whose single J-51 grant burned off in 2002. Same block, same architect, same developer — different capital histories.

Debt. The latest statements in the 2019–20 through 2023–24 series on file describe a first mortgage originally written at $3,200,000, fixed at 2.925 percent, amortizing on a thirty-year schedule over a ten-year term and maturing March 1, 2031 with a balloon of roughly $2,450,000. Those statements report a balance of approximately $2.93 million and an unsecured revolving line of credit, increased from $500,000 to $1,250,000 during 2024 and co-terminus with the mortgage, undrawn at the reporting date. Confirm current balances, availability, covenants and maturity; the reported rate and 2031 balloon do not establish current financial strength or eliminate earlier borrowing needs.

Reserves and capital posture. The latest statements in the 2019–20 through 2023–24 series on file report roughly $913,000 in cash, reserves and investments, total assets of about $10.5 million and shareholders’ equity of about $7.2 million. They note no governing-document requirement for funded reserves and no reserve study at that reporting date. Those historical balances and book equity do not establish current reserve adequacy or available cash; obtain updated statements and the capital plan.

Live assessments — the most important item on this page for a buyer. The board imposed a capital assessment of approximately $400,000 (about $17.30 per share) billed in monthly installments from August 2023 through July 2025 to partially fund the Local Law 11 façade program. It then imposed a second capital assessment of $18.87 per share, roughly $437,000, billed monthly from August 2025 through July 2027, to fund a conversion of the building's boiler to gas. The gas conversion was estimated at approximately $370,000 exclusive of engineering when the most recent statements were issued, and no contract had been signed as of that date. A separate electrical upgrade to one unit, following a gas leak, was contracted at roughly $70,000. Any apartment purchased here today carries a running assessment through July 2027. Confirm the current per-share amount and remaining term with the managing agent before you price the monthly.

Building staff are covered by a Building Service 32BJ collective bargaining agreement; the one on file expired in April 2026, so confirm the successor agreement's costs in the current budget. Payroll and related costs were 33.8 percent of operating expenses in 2024.

Ownership form: Cooperative. Purchase requires a full board package and an interview, and the board has broad discretion, limited by federal, state and city law and its own authority. Budget eight to twelve weeks from executed contract to closing, and note that NYC Local Law 58 of 2026 now imposes acknowledgment and decision deadlines on co-op boards.

Financing: 75 percent maximum per management-sourced records. Some listing records carry 80 percent. Obtain a current written management response and have counsel reconcile it with the operative proprietary lease, bylaws, plan and valid amendments; management’s answer alone does not establish the governing limit.

Post-closing liquidity: Not published. Confirm the requirement in the board's application instructions before offering, not after.

Subletting: Restrictive by Upper East Side standards, and documented rather than inferred. Two-year owner-occupancy seasoning, board interview of the subtenant, one-year minimum term, a 20 percent-of-maintenance annual fee, no-smoking and no-pets clauses required in the sublease, and a hard ceiling of three sublet years in any five. This is not an investor building.

Pied-à-terre, co-purchase, guarantors and gifting: Not addressed in the house rules on file. Management-sourced records describe guarantors as acceptable on purchases — with the guarantor named on the shares — and not acceptable on sublets, and describe pieds-à-terre, co-purchasing and gifting as case-by-case with board approval. Confirm all of it.

Trusts and LLCs: ACRIS transfers at this lot include conveyances involving trusts and estates, so trust ownership functions here in practice. That is not a published policy, and LLC purchase is a separate question. Both should be confirmed, and both carry tax-abatement consequences worth raising with counsel.

Flip tax: 2.0 percent of the sale price per the corporation's audited financial statements. The payer is not stated there and the market records conflict. Get it in writing.

Alterations: The house rules require 80 percent floor coverage in all rooms except kitchens, pantries, bathrooms, closets and foyers, and confine construction noise to weekdays between 8:30 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. Both matter to a renovation schedule.

Recent sales

Recent transfers at this building, from The Roebling Research Library. 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.

Market read. Most recent trades (2026 to date) cleared a median $747/sf (floor-adjusted) across 1 sale. Floor-adjusted means each sale is restated to a constant mix of floors, so the figure can differ from the plain median of the sales listed above. Median listing discount 3.4% from the last ask — a recurring negotiation gap worth pricing into any offer or listing strategy.

Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 1-01428-0017). Apartment-level facts (line, condition, asking-price context) curated and cross-verified in The Roebling Research Library. 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.

Underwrite the assessment, not just the maintenance. A per-share capital assessment runs through July 2027 to fund the gas conversion, on the heels of one that ran through July 2025 for the façade. Ask for the current per-share figure, the remaining term, and whether the board expects a third.

No J-51 benefit remains. The last of three J-51 grants was consumed in tax year 2008. The roll shows no remaining exemption; confirm any abatement on the building's current tax bill, and expect the tax line to move with assessments and rates.

Update the mortgage and credit line. The statements on file report 2.925 percent fixed debt maturing in March 2031 and a $1.25 million credit line undrawn at their reporting date. Obtain current balances, available credit and the board’s funding plan, including the balloon and nearer capital needs.

Read the sublet policy before you assume flexibility. Two years of owner occupancy, a board interview for the subtenant, a 20 percent-of-maintenance annual fee, and a three-in-five-years ceiling. If your plan involves renting the apartment at any point, price that plan honestly.

Check whether the fireplace works. In this building and in 230 across the street, the fireplaces were built decorative. Do not pay for a working flue you have not verified.

The block is not landmarked, and that cuts both ways. No Landmarks approval is required for façade or window work, which makes it faster and cheaper. It also means the enclave's coherence depends on six separate boards making compatible choices. Under R8B, recorded floor area on the block runs roughly twice a simple comparison with what the district now allows; that comparison does not establish legal zoning floor area or permitted future work.

Prepare the board package properly. Run the Co-op Board Qualification Calculator before you offer, and ask the post-closing liquidity question early.

Lead with the enclave and the architect. Emery Roth, Bing & Bing, six buildings, one architectural idea, no through traffic. That is a story a buyer absorbs in ten minutes and it differentiates this address from generic side-street prewar stock.

Disclose the assessment on your terms. A running per-share assessment through July 2027 will surface in the board package. Presenting it early — with the building's own explanation of what it funds and what the mortgage looks like behind it — produces a better result than letting it appear at contract.

Provide the dated financial record. The statements on file describe a 2.925 percent mortgage maturing in 2031, a credit line undrawn at the reporting date and positive book equity. Supply current balances, credit availability, loan terms and capital needs; those historical facts do not establish superiority to competing cooperatives or current liquidity.

Price condition honestly. The gap between an estate-condition lettered apartment and a renovated combination is wide here. Run the Renovation Cost Calculator against your asking strategy.

If you're considering 235 East 73rd Street, also evaluate:

• 225 East 73rd Street — the immediate Eastgate blockmate, four years older, with a different J-51 and capital history
• 230 East 73rd Street — the twin across the street, completed the same year, the closest like-for-like in the group
• 220 East 73rd Street — the earlier Eastgate building on the south side; sunken living rooms and working fireplaces
• 150 East 73rd Street — prewar co-op west of Lexington; the step up in address at a step up in price
• 112 East 74th Street — comparable prewar side-street cooperative one block north
• 157 East 74th Street — prewar co-op in the same Lenox Hill side-street band
• 215 East 72nd Street — the postwar full-service alternative two blocks south
• 200 East 74th Street — postwar co-op on the avenue corner; the different-product comparison