25 East End Avenue (The Yorkgate)
25 East End Avenue, New York, NY 10028
- Year built
- 1928
- Type
- Cooperative — built as a cooperative from the start in 1928
- Units
- 38
- Floors
- 15
- Landmark
- No
- Amenities
- Fitness room, central laundry (in-unit washer/dryers present in some residences), bike room, package room, private storage per listing records
- Pets
- Cats and dogs permitted per listing records
- Financing
- 50 percent maximum per listing records
Every prestige corridor has a building that came first, and on East End Avenue it is the Yorkgate. Completed in 1928 to designs by Cross & Cross — the firm behind 1 Sutton Place South and 720 Park Avenue — 25 East End Avenue was, as The New York Times' Christopher Gray recounted in a 2007 Streetscapes column, the first apartment building on East End Avenue, rising while the avenue south of 84th Street was still industrial. The bet was the same one a syndicate led by Eliot Cross had already made at Sutton Place: that New Yorkers of means would trade the center of town for quiet river frontage. It worked. The building's elegance drew 1 East End Avenue onto the neighboring block the following year, and the limestone co-ops that define the avenue followed.
We hold the building's original 1928 sales prospectus in The Roebling Research Library, and it is a remarkable document: the Yorkgate was offered as "the first cooperative apartment house in this locality," organized around a plan in which every master room faced outward — no light courts — with the northerly apartment on each floor running the full depth of the building from the East River to the avenue, so river air could move through the residence. The prospectus sold the Carl Schurz Park section explicitly as the next Sutton Place. Nearly a century later, that is exactly what the corridor became, and the Yorkgate's original architecture — limestone facade, quoined corners, river balconies, the marble lobby with its starburst clock, still essentially intact — is the corridor's founding artifact.
The building's cultural history matches the architecture. Charles MacArthur, co-author of The Front Page, and his wife, the actress Helen Hayes, lived at the Yorkgate, per The New York Times. One historical footnote buyers enjoy: the building originally also fronted Marie Curie Avenue, a riverside street erased to build the FDR Drive — today's protected river outlook was once a second address.
As a market matter, the Yorkgate is the scarce thing on the avenue: a small pre-war Cross & Cross house of roughly 38 apartments with wood-burning fireplaces, an elevator operator, and direct river views, sized between the corridor's full-blockfront co-ops and its boutique new condos.
Architecture and unit composition
The building rises 15 floors (16 stories counting the penthouse) in limestone-faced neo-Georgian dress over a two-story stone base, with quoins and finials articulating the massing and balconies on the river elevation. The original three-units-per-floor plan produces large, formal layouts: entrance foyers and galleries, 20-to-24-foot living rooms with wood-burning fireplaces, enclosed dining rooms, and libraries. Combinations over the decades have produced duplexes — including a documented 10th/11th-floor duplex with a 24-foot corner living room, library, and a recreation room with its own fireplace — and the count in city records (32) versus the original plan (roughly 38) reflects that consolidation. East-facing rooms above the FDR carry protected East River views; the avenue side faces the low corridor and afternoon light.
Building operations
Full-service in the pre-war manner: 24-hour doorman, a staffed elevator with operator — increasingly rare in Manhattan and a defining service note here — and a live-in superintendent. The amenity stack is right-sized to a 38-unit house: fitness room, central laundry (with in-unit washer/dryers present in some residences), bike room, package room, and storage per listing records. Carrying costs reflect the staffing model; buyers comparing maintenance against self-service buildings should price the elevator operator and full staff as the service they are.
Local Law 97
- 2024–2029 annual penalty
- $0 (under cap)
- 2030–2034 annual penalty
- $6,543/yr
- Per unit / month range
- $0 – $17
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Dec 19, 2025 | SR11 | $3,325,000 |
| May 5, 2025 | PH | $5,600,000 |
| Mar 27, 2025 | 5E | $2,800,000 |
| Feb 21, 2025 | 11G10 | $4,998,000 |
| Jul 1, 2024 | SR17 | $2,200,000 |
| Mar 30, 2022 | 7E | $2,995,000 |
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 1-01589-0019) 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
You are buying the corridor's original. First apartment house on the avenue, Cross & Cross pedigree, and an envelope that has barely changed since 1928. Against the avenue's larger post-war co-ops, the premium is for scale, fireplaces, and provenance; against the boutique new condos, the discount is substantial.
The financing framework is conservative. 50 percent maximum financing per listing records, with the rest of the structural policy stack (co-purchase, guarantors, trusts) thinly documented publicly — prepare for a traditional East End board posture and run the Co-op Board Qualification Calculator before offering.
River views here are protected — and specific. East-facing rooms look across the FDR to the river and Roosevelt Island; the original plan put master rooms on the outside walls, so light is structural, not luck. Walk the specific line at different hours; the FDR is below, and sound exposure varies by floor.
Wood-burning fireplaces are a diminishing asset class. The city no longer permits them in new construction; buildings that have them, keep them. Confirm the specific unit's fireplace is active and chimney-serviced during diligence.
Verify the fee stack. The 2 percent purchaser-paid flip tax and current sublet terms should be confirmed against building documents at offer stage; sublet policy is not firmly documented in public records.
What to know if you’re selling
Market the provenance with precision. Cross & Cross, 1928, first on the avenue, the Sutton Place syndicate lineage, Helen Hayes — this building has the deepest narrative on East End Avenue, and we hold the original prospectus to prove it. Documented history outperforms adjectives in this buyer pool.
Position against both ends of the corridor. Your buyer is cross-shopping the Gracie Square trophy co-ops above and the post-war value tier below. The Yorkgate's case is the middle path: pre-war scale and detail at a fraction of Gracie Square pricing, with more architecture than any post-war neighbor.
Condition honesty wins. With roughly 38 units, same-building comps are sparse and the renovated-versus-estate spread is wide. Price to the renovation math — run the Renovation Cost Calculator against your asking strategy.
Comparable buildings
If you're considering 25 East End Avenue, also evaluate:
- 1 East End Avenue — the 1929 neighbor built in the Yorkgate's wake; the closest like-for-like pre-war
- 120 East End Avenue — the corridor's stately limestone pre-war directly on Carl Schurz Park; the prestige step-up
- 130 East End Avenue — Emery Roth pre-war co-op across from the park
- 1 Gracie Square and 10 Gracie Square — the corridor's blue-chip pre-war trophy co-ops
- 200 East End Avenue — the full-blockfront post-war co-op opposite the park; the value-tier alternative
- 45 East End Avenue — the post-war river-side neighbor one block north; the direct-river-frontage alternative
- 40 East End Avenue — boutique new-development condo; the new-construction alternative
- 20 East End Avenue — Robert A.M. Stern's new-classical condo; the corridor's top-tier new alternative
The Roebling Team at The Yorkgate
The Roebling Team at Compass works the Upper East Side, the East End Avenue and Gracie Square corridor, and the broader park-and-river-facing market as a core practice area. We publish this building profile because East End Avenue buyers and sellers deserve building-specific intelligence — original documentation, policy framework, and corridor-level comparables — not generic neighborhood commentary.
If you're considering a transaction at 25 East End Avenue, a 30-minute consultation is the right starting point.