292 Lafayette Street
292 Lafayette Street, New York, NY 10012
SoHo
BBL 1005100037 · BIN 1083082
- Year built
- 1883
- Type
- Cooperative
- Units
- 13
- Floors
- 7
- Landmark
- No
Every recorded sale at this building, 2003–2025
Price-per-square-foot over time, the line- and floor-premium curves, and every recorded sale.
- Median $/sf
- $1,578
- Listing discount
- 2.0%
- Recorded sales
- 18
- On record
- 2003–2025
This is a building that was cut in half by a street, rebuilt with a different face, and then turned into thirteen apartments — and every one of those events is legible in what you see from the sidewalk.
Leo Schlesinger, a toy manufacturer, put it up in 1883–84 to designs by H. J. Schwartzmann & Company, in the years when the blocks around Broadway and Elm Street were turning from the city's entertainment district into its mercantile and dry-goods center. It was much larger then. Marion Street — the predecessor of this stretch of Lafayette — terminated at Jersey Street, and the original south façade of Schlesinger's factory closed the view up the street.
In 1897 the City condemned and demolished properties between Jersey Street and Great Jones Street to open a wide new thoroughfare linking to Fourth Avenue, dropping the names Elm Street, Marion Street and Lafayette Place and creating Lafayette Street. The building's footprint was reduced to less than half its original size. Schlesinger, who still owned it, engaged Buchman & Deisler to design a new Renaissance Revival façade on the new building line — limestone band courses, multi-story brick piers topped with Ionic capitals, splayed lintels, scrolled keystones, a bracketed cornice — and to carry that treatment part of the way along Jersey Street. Schwartzmann's Queen Anne work survives on Crosby and on most of Jersey: variegated brick with terra cotta and brownstone, segmental brick arches, patterned spandrels, a corbelled parapet. You can stand at the chamfered corner and see 1884 on one side of you and 1898 on the other.
The tenant list reads like an index of what the neighborhood did for a century. Schlesinger's toy works. The Hebrew Technical Institute, founded in 1884 as a training school for underprivileged boys — industrial drawing, clay modeling, the principles of mechanics — occupied a portion of the building in the 1880s. Then a dry battery company in 1903, a clothing manufacturer in 1915, a hat company in 1920, a hardware corporation in 1926, the Zenith Electric Company in the 1940s and 1950s, a chain and belt manufacturer in 1951. And then, in 1985, the artist Keith Haring, whose occupancy here the Landmarks Preservation Commission records in its designation report, citing The New York Times. The Commission names this building specifically, alongside Frank Gehry's studio on Crosby Street, as one of the addresses that made the district extension worth designating.
The cooperative dates from 1983. The Appleby family sold to a converting sponsor in January 1980; the sponsor conveyed to Appleby Arms Owners Corp. in May 1983 and cleared its construction debt that December. The J-51 record confirms the physical work: an alteration certified at $157,900, drawing a fifty-percent abatement from fiscal 1984 and an exemption from fiscal 1985 that ran out in fiscal 1998. That is a 1983-vintage SoHo loft conversion done through the normal filing route with a tax benefit attached — not a Loft Board legalization, and not a 1970s artists' cooperative that legalized itself floor by floor.
Which leaves the occupancy question, and it is the reason to read the next section before you make an offer.
Architecture and unit composition
Forty-two feet of frontage on Lafayette, eighty-four feet through to Crosby, seven stories, roughly 25,244 gross square feet, three designated elevations plus a mostly obscured north wall. The Lafayette base is fluted cast iron with molded bases and capitals; the Crosby base is rusticated columns and brick bulkheads; Jersey Street is eight bays of the plainer Schwartzmann treatment with a historic wrought-iron fire escape. Historic two-over-two wood sash survives at the second through sixth floors on both principal elevations — a rare thing on a working loft building and a real constraint on window replacement.
Thirteen residences over about 23,400 residential square feet is an average near 1,800 gross square feet, and the E/W designations tell you the layout: two apartments to a floor on most floors, east facing Crosby and west facing Lafayette, running the shallow 42-foot depth from front wall to party wall rather than the long axis. That produces wide, light lofts with two exposures rather than deep floor-throughs, and it means the Lafayette-facing homes look directly at the Puck Building while the Crosby-facing homes look at a narrow, quiet street. A new building went up immediately north at 300 Lafayette Street in 2019, and the corporation filed roof protection during that construction — worth understanding for anyone buying a north-facing or top-floor apartment.
Building operations
An elevator loft building with a professional managing agent and a sustained, expensive façade program — which is what three designated elevations on a 140-year-old brick building produce.
The Department of Buildings record since 2008 reads as a continuous envelope campaign: sidewalk sheds in 2008 and 2010, pipe scaffolding in 2010 and 2011, removal and replacement of spalled brick at the seventh floor with cornice repairs in 2010, replacement of deteriorated sandstone column caps, window sills and keystones in 2012, roof protection during the adjacent new construction in 2019, and a further miscellaneous façade repair at the east and west elevations in 2021 involving brick removal and replacement, cutting, pointing, caulking and patching. A 2021 job also installed a new laundry duct system, floor openings for air-conditioning piping, a new skylight and a new roof access door.
None of that is a red flag. It is the honest cost of owning a landmarked masonry loft, and the building has evidently been paying it. What a buyer should establish is where that program stands in the current Local Law 11 cycle, what the last three assessments funded, and how the corporation intends to fund the next cycle — because the answer divides thirteen ways.
Occupancy, zoning, and what is actually documented
Was this a Joint Living-Work Quarters for Artists conversion? Almost certainly in framework, and unverifiable in the file. In 1983 this lot was zoned M1-5B. Under the 1971 zoning amendment that created JLWQA, residential occupancy in M1-5A and M1-5B was permitted only as joint living-work quarters for certified artists. A conversion completed in that district in that year would have been carried out inside that framework. But the Department of Buildings has no certificate of occupancy for this building identification number in its digitized records — the ordinary condition of a pre-1938 loft that has never been comprehensively re-certified in a single filing — so we cannot read the designation off the certificate, and we will not assert it. Ask the managing agent for the certificate of occupancy of record and, if there is none, for the corporation's written position on residential legalization.
Does the artist requirement still bite? Prospectively, no. The December 2021 SoHo/NoHo rezoning mapped this lot into M1-5/R9X within the Special SoHo–NoHo Mixed Use District and made residential use as-of-right, ending the artist-certification requirement going forward. That is a genuine improvement to the building's legal position and to its financing profile. But a rezoning changes the zoning, not the certificate of occupancy. The gap between the two facts is exactly what a buyer's attorney should ask the corporation to address in writing.
Is the building a Loft Law interim multiple dwelling? Not documented, and the record points away from it. The building was bought by a converting sponsor in January 1980, before the Article 7-C qualifying window closed, and conveyed to a cooperative corporation in 1983 with a J-51 alteration benefit attached. We located no Loft Board interim multiple dwelling registration for it. None is documented; we do not claim that none exists.
Policy framework
We located no offering plan, proprietary lease or house rules for this building in either document library, and we do not publish policy we cannot source. The practical consequence:
Get in writing, before you offer: the current maintenance and what it includes; the underlying mortgage's outstanding balance, interest rate and maturity date; reserve balance and assessment history; the flip tax rate, base and who pays it; the financing ceiling and minimum cash down; post-closing liquidity; sublet seasoning, fees and any cap; pet and pied-à-terre rules; and the board's written position on trust and entity purchases.
What the record already tells you. Trusts and limited liability companies have both closed here — trusts in 2018, 2021 and 2023, LLCs in 2024 and 2025. Very few thirteen-unit cooperatives permit both. That flexibility is a real feature for buyers structuring around estate planning or privacy, and it is a reason to ask the question early and get the answer in writing rather than assuming either way.
What you should not have to worry about. The artist-certification requirement no longer applies prospectively, the J-51 is long burned off with nothing left to lose, and the tax position is simply full assessment. There is no abatement cliff coming.
Local Law 97
- 2024–2029 annual penalty
- $0 (under cap)
- 2030–2034 annual penalty
- $454/yr
- Per unit / month range
- $0 – $3
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 2020–25. 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
Thirteen apartments means resale supply is a handful of trades a decade, and pricing is set by the individual loft — floor, exposure, ceiling height, the state of the renovation, and whether the apartment faces the Puck Building on Lafayette or the quieter Crosby Street side. The competitive set is the other converted loft cooperatives and condominiums of the NoHo–SoHo border: the Lafayette Street lofts, the Crosby Street buildings, and the Great Jones and Bond Street conversions. It is not the new-development towers, and it is not the full-service prewar cooperatives north of Houston.
Two structural facts belong in every pricing conversation because a well-advised buyer's attorney will find them. First, the certificate-of-occupancy record: there is none on file, the 2021 rezoning improved the zoning but did not amend the certificate, and a seller who can produce a clear written answer from the corporation is in a materially stronger position than one who cannot. Second, the underlying mortgage has been carried and consolidated since 1987, most recently in 2016, and its current terms are not public. Getting both answers before you go to market is worth more than any amount of staging. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 18, 2023 | 6W | 2 BR · 1.5 BA · 1,500 sf | $2,750,000 | $1,833/sf | -6.8% |
| Oct 1, 2021 | 2E | 2 BR · 2 BA · 1,697 sf | $3,600,000 | $2,121/sf | -2.6% |
| Aug 15, 2018 | 7E | 2 BR · 2 BA | $3,300,000 | -2.9% | |
| Aug 26, 2015 | 5W | 2 BR · 2 BA · 1,500 sf | $3,300,000 | $2,200/sf | +11.9% |
| Oct 22, 2012 | 4W | 1 BR · 1,500 sf | $1,550,000 | $1,033/sf | -6.1% |
| Jan 11, 2012 | 7W | 2 BR · 1,500 sf | $1,820,000 | $1,213/sf | +1.4% |
| Jun 29, 2010 | 5W | 2 BR · 1,500 sf | $1,700,000 | $1,133/sf | -5.6% |
| Jul 9, 2008 | 2E | 2 BR · 1,600 sf | $2,255,000 | $1,409/sf | +7.4% |
Market read. $/sf is measured on the latest sales with reliable square footage (2023): a median $1,578/sf across 1 sale. The building has traded as recently as 2025. Median listing discount 2.0% 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 1-00510-0037) 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.
Notable history
Per the Landmarks Preservation Commission's designation report, which cites The New York Times, the artist Keith Haring occupied space in this building in 1985. The Commission names 292–296 Lafayette Street among the addresses that made the SoHo–Cast Iron Historic District Extension worth designating, alongside Frank Gehry's studio at 55 Crosby Street. Earlier occupants documented in the same report include the Hebrew Technical Institute in the 1880s and the Zenith Electric Company, which ran its plant here in the 1940s and 1950s. We do not identify current or recent residents.
Comparable buildings
If you're considering 292 Lafayette Street, also evaluate:
- 284 Lafayette Street — the Lafayette Studios cooperative diagonally across Jersey Street, an 1891 John R. Thomas factory converted in 1976; the closest comparison in every respect and the essential one
- 295 Lafayette Street (The Puck Building) — directly across Lafayette, the penthouse condominium alternative in the district's landmark building
- 285 Lafayette Street — converted factory condominium a block south, for buyers who prefer deed ownership
- 237 Lafayette Street — twenty-one-apartment loft cooperative with a ground-floor store, the same product a few blocks south
- 45 Crosby Street — twelve-unit 1895 loft cooperative on the parallel street, very close in scale
- 16 Crosby Street — twelve-residence 1877 loft cooperative, the older-fabric comparison
- 30 Crosby Street (The Loft) — thirteen-residence 1878 loft condominium, the same unit count under a different tenure
- 93 Mercer Street — ten-loft 1900–01 cooperative with a commercial space, in the original cast-iron district
- 43 Great Jones Street — seven-residence 1892–93 loft cooperative on the NoHo side
- 27 Great Jones Street — ten-residence loft condominium, the boutique NoHo alternative
- 10 Bond Street — eleven-residence contemporary cooperative for buyers weighing new construction against 1880s fabric
The neighborhood
For the full corridor — architecture, schools, transit, and pricing across East Village + NoHo — read The Roebling Team Guide to East Village + NoHo.
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.
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