240 West 98th Street (The Sabrina)

The building occupies a 175-foot frontage on West 98th Street running roughly 202 feet south to West 97th, wrapping the Broadway corner lot that still holds the 1897 tavern building. Department of Buildings sidewalk-shed filings from the 2004 façade campaign describe the perimeter precisely: forty feet on West 97th Street, a hundred feet on Broadway, eighty feet on West 98th.

Apartments run through both wings on a lettered system — the A through H lines in the north wing, K through N in the south — with penthouses above. The original room counts survive, which on the upper floors means four-, five- and seven-room layouts with the prewar circulation intact: entry foyers, separated public and private wings, and in a number of apartments the original staff rooms. Combinations have happened since conversion but they are horizontal and vertical joins of whole apartments rather than subdivisions: DOB records document 6B with 6C, 13B with 13C, 3B with 3C, 12D with 13D, PHC with PHD, 14B with PH C/D, and 3BC with 4C, several of them with convenience stairs added between floors. The tax map reflects some of these — a 2012 subdivision application combined tax lots 1220 and 1234.

The deep courts are the design's main gift and its main caveat. They put windows into apartments that would otherwise be interior, but a court exposure is a court exposure: less light, more sound transfer, and a view of the building's own brick. Line-by-line evaluation matters more here than in a simpler building, and the difference between a Broadway-facing, street-facing and court-facing apartment on the same floor is substantial.

The Sabrina runs a full union staff under the 32BJ apartment-building agreement, and payroll is the story of the budget: roughly $1.64 million of a $2.9 million operating cost in the most recent audited year on file. Common charges ran about $2.82 million against total revenue of $2.91 million. Common charges were raised 2.01 percent and then 1.00 percent in consecutive years — modest increases, in a building whose sponsor pays a large share of them.

The capital history is more encouraging than most prewar conversions of this size. In June 2019 the condominium levied a capital assessment of approximately $1,250,000 to fund a capital program and replenish the reserve, payable in a lump sum at a 6 percent discount or over twelve months from August 2019 through July 2020. It funded a real program, and the program finished. The audited statements record capital spending of roughly $1.08 million in 2019 and $545,000 in 2020, covering:

• Local Law 11 façade and parapet restoration — completed
• Elevator upgrades — completed
• Boiler conversion to gas — completed
• Security camera installation — completed
• Sidewalk and vault replacement — completed
• Basement improvements — completed
• Roof restoration, plumbing upgrades, energy consulting, pumps, canopy and doors

A second-floor connecting roof restoration of about $35,000 was scheduled to follow, paid from reserves. The reserve fund stood at roughly $1.17 million at the most recent year-end on file, after $1.50 million the year before — the decline is the capital spending, not a deficit. Members' equity was above $10.2 million. There is no underlying mortgage; a condominium does not carry one, and the sponsor's unsold units are unpledged.

Two smaller operating items are worth noting. The condominium leases a portion of the common area under a twenty-year agreement entered in January 2012, producing about $3,900 a month. And the ground-floor retail — a supermarket on the Broadway frontage — is a commercial condominium interest held by the sponsor and not offered for sale, so retail income does not accrue to the residential owners.

Ownership form: Condominium. Purchases clear through a right of first refusal rather than a cooperative board approval.

Transfer fee: 5 percent of the gross profit on the resale of a unit, per the condominium's audited financial statements. This is the single most important policy line on the page for a seller. A profit-based transfer fee behaves nothing like the more common 1-to-2-percent-of-price flip tax: it is zero on a flat sale and can be large on a long-held appreciated apartment. Model it against your actual basis before pricing.

Working capital contribution: One month's common charges at closing.

Pied-à-terre, subletting, LLC, trust and foreign ownership: Permitted under the standard condominium framework. Minimum lease terms should be confirmed with the managing agent.

Pets: Not documented in the amendments on file. Confirm the house rules with the managing agent.

Real estate taxes: No 421-a, no J-51, and no building-wide exemption on any residential unit lot in any assessment roll from FY2011 forward. Underwrite full unabated taxes on the specific unit.

Sponsor units and tenancies: A large block of apartments is sponsor-owned and tenant-occupied. If a unit under consideration is a sponsor unit, establish in writing whether it is being sold vacant and whether any tenancy is regulated. A unit sold subject to a tenancy is a different asset from a vacant one.

Recent sales

Recent closings 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.

Market read. Most recent trades (2026) cleared a median $1,005/sf across 3 sales. Median listing discount 3.3% 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 1-01869-7503) 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 from recorded condo declarations and offering plans.

Risë Stevens, the Metropolitan Opera mezzo-soprano, moved into apartment 11-A in the north wing at 240 West 98th Street in 1939 following her marriage to the actor and later agent Walter Szurovy; the marriage and the address were reported in the press at the time. Stevens had already sung at the Vienna State Opera and debuted at the Metropolitan, and went on to a long career on stage, on record and in film.

The building also housed a number of figures from the film and theatre business in its first decade, including an executive of the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation and performers from the Ziegfeld Follies, several of whom appear in contemporaneous newspaper accounts. No current residents are documented in the press.

The transfer fee is 5 percent of profit, not of price. It is the most unusual policy term in the building and the one most often missed. Understand it before you buy, because it will govern what you net when you sell.

Roughly two-fifths of the building is sponsor-owned and rented. Ask for the current figure, not the one in the last amendment on file. It affects supply, financing tests, and voting.

Exposure decides value. Broadway, side street, and interior court are three different apartments at the same address and the same price per foot is not appropriate to all three.

The heavy capital work is behind it. Façade, elevators, boiler, sidewalk vault and basement all completed on the back of the 2019 assessment. That is a materially better position than a comparable prewar building with the work still ahead.

There is no abatement, and there never was. Full taxes from the first closing.

Search all four addresses. 240 West 98th Street, 241 West 97th Street, 2589–2599 Broadway, and 2589 Broadway for older ACRIS recordings. They are one tax lot.

Lead with the layouts. Unsubdivided 1923 four-, five- and seven-room apartments are the building's genuine scarcity on upper Broadway, and no floor plan in a converted or postwar building matches them.

Run the transfer fee before you set the price. Five percent of gross profit on a long-held apartment is a large number. Build it into the net-proceeds analysis at the outset rather than discovering it at contract.

Use the completed capital program. A buyer's attorney reading the financial statements will find a finished façade, elevator, boiler and vault program funded by a 2019 assessment that is over. That is an asset in negotiation.

Know your in-building competition. Sponsor inventory at a disclosed per-foot price is the competing supply. Position against it deliberately.

If you're considering The Sabrina, also evaluate:

• The Terra Cotta (780 West End Avenue) — the other prewar condominium on the same tax block, a block west; the closest direct comparison in the neighborhood
• 300 West 109th Street (The Manhasset) — the other large landmarked Broadway prewar apartment house converted to condominium; the nearest true peer by scale and type
• 255 West 98th Street — prewar alternative on the same block
• 305 West 98th Street — prewar alternative between West End and Riverside
• 311 West 97th Street — prewar alternative on the south side of the same block line
• 275 West 96th Street (The Columbia) — full-service Broadway-corridor condominium two blocks south; the postwar amenity alternative
• 250 West 96th Street (96+Broadway) — new-construction condominium on Broadway; the modern alternative with a different tax and amenity profile
• 245 West 99th Street (Ariel West) — contemporary Broadway condominium tower a block north
• 310 West 99th Street — prewar alternative just north
• 320 Riverside Drive — the Riverside Drive prewar alternative at a higher tier