301 East 52nd Street
301 East 52nd Street, New York, NY 10022
Midtown East
BBL 1013450005 · BIN 1039783
- Year built
- 1931
- Type
- Cooperative
- Units
- 16
- Floors
- 5
- 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
- $719
- Listing discount
- 5.0%
- Recorded sales
- 18
- On record
- 2003–2025
Almost everything the public record says about this building is wrong, and the correction is the reason to look at it. PLUTO calls it a 1979 building. It is a 1931 one. The offering plan on file states plainly that the sponsor bought the property in December 1977 from a boys' club, that the club had left it substantially vacant, and that the builder would "demolish the entire interior of the building (except for floors and some floor beams)" and rebuild it as apartments. What DOF recorded as a year of construction is in fact the year the gut was finished.
The original occupant was the Kips Bay Boys Club, and the clubhouse is credited in architectural records to Delano & Aldrich — a firm whose partner Chester Aldrich presided over the club for about twenty years. That is the sort of provenance that usually attaches to a landmark. It does not here: LPC's database shows no designation on this tax lot, and the only designated buildings on the block are the two individual landmarks around the corner on East 53rd Street. The building is unprotected, which cuts both ways — no LPC review on facade work, and no external guarantee of its appearance either.
What the 1978–80 renovation produced is unusual stock. Sixteen apartments in roughly 28,000 square feet works out to an average near 1,700 square feet, and the plan's own layout description confirms the shape of it: two apartments at lobby level with recreation rooms beneath them, duplexes at the top with terraces at the fifth floor and at the penthouse, a professional unit in the basement. This is a five-story building on a seventy-four-foot frontage running back roughly a hundred feet — closer in feel to a very large townhouse than to an apartment house, which is presumably why the corporation named itself 301-52 Townhouse Corp.
The corporation is small, and small corporations concentrate risk. Sixteen shareholders carry every dollar of a $2.35 million underlying mortgage consolidated in December 2022, every capital project, and every arrears. The J-51 that once softened the carry expired with the 1992 tax year. There is no commercial income stream visible in the public record — the plan's one professional unit was converted to the superintendent's apartment before the conversion closed. Maintenance here is what sixteen owners decide it is.
Architecture and unit composition
The exterior is the clubhouse: red brick, a bandcourse above the ground floor, arched second-story windows, and an institutional symmetry that the residential conversion left largely alone at street level. The alterations were concentrated where the building had to become housing — a rebuilt fifth floor partly enclosed in new brickwork matched to the original front wall and partly glazed in aluminum and glass, an enlarged penthouse to carry the upper halves of the top-floor duplexes, a new fireproof public stair running from cellar to penthouse roof alongside the retained original stair, and a new elevator dropped into the existing masonry shaft.
Inside, the plan describes new partitions, new brass plumbing, new wiring, new kitchens and tiled bathrooms, and new heating throughout — a complete rebuild rather than a cosmetic conversion, which is why the apartments read as late-1970s architecture inside a 1931 shell. The mix runs from a lobby-level studio through three-bedroom duplexes; one duplex was designed as a two-bedroom with a fifth-floor terrace and the other as a three-bedroom with a penthouse-level terrace. Recorded share transfers over the last decade span lobby-level, lower-level, and upper-floor lines, which is consistent with a building where nearly every apartment is a distinct floor plan.
Building operations
The building is staffed by a resident superintendent who occupies what the plan originally designated as the professional unit; the sponsor eliminated the projected non-resident concierge position at the same time, and the corporation's staffing has stayed lean since. One self-service passenger elevator serves the building. Listing records over the years have described a doorman shift, which is not documented in the plan; a buyer should confirm current staffing hours directly with the managing agent rather than relying on marketing copy. Facade and roof-level repairs have been filed with DOB repeatedly — sidewalk sheds in 2005, 2008 and 2017, exterior and penthouse-level repairs in 2008, facade work in 2016 — which is a normal maintenance rhythm for a masonry building of this age but worth pricing into any offer.
Policy framework
None of this building's transfer policies are published. The offering plan establishes only the baseline structure: outside the sponsor's unsold-share period, both sales and sublets require the consent of the Board of Directors, or, failing that, the approval of shareholders holding at least two-thirds of the shares. Everything a buyer actually needs to underwrite — the financing ceiling, minimum down payment, post-closing liquidity expectation, flip tax and who pays it, sublet seasoning and duration, pied-à-terre tolerance, and whether trusts or LLCs are entertained — is set by the current board and available only from the managing agent. In a sixteen-unit corporation those positions can also be genuinely idiosyncratic; ask early, before you write an offer, because there is no market convention to fall back on.
Local Law 97
- 2024–2029 annual penalty
- $0 (under cap)
- 2030–2034 annual penalty
- $17,768/yr
- Per unit / month range
- $0 – $93
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
301 East 52nd Street trades thinly and at the top of the Turtle Bay co-op range. Recorded share transfers run at a rate of roughly one a year across the whole building, which means comparables inside the building are usually stale and the pricing conversation has to be built against nearby boutique and prewar co-op stock rather than against the building's own history. The apartments are large by neighborhood standards and the duplex and terrace lines carry the premium; the lobby- and lower-level lines are the value entry and are the units most sensitive to light and layout. Buyers should read the per-room math here rather than the headline price: a small corporation, a live underlying mortgage, and no commercial income mean the monthly carry does more work in the valuation than it does in a large full-service house. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 6, 2025 | 2B | 3 BR · 2 BA · 1,600 sf | $1,150,000 | $719/sf | -14.8% |
| Jul 29, 2024 | LA | 2 BR · 2.5 BA · 1,800 sf | $1,925,000 | $1,069/sf | -22.8% |
| Jan 11, 2024 | 4B | 3 BR · 2 BA · 1,590 sf | $1,400,000 | $881/sf | -6.4% |
| Nov 4, 2021 | 1B2 | 2 BR · 2 BA · 1,600 sf | $1,285,000 | $803/sf | -4.8% |
| Sep 13, 2021 | 4B | 3 BR · 2 BA · 1,590 sf | $1,350,000 | $849/sf | -6.9% |
| Sep 3, 2020 | PHA | 2 BR · 2.5 BA · 1,800 sf | $1,800,000 | $1,000/sf | -5.3% |
| Jul 15, 2015 | LA | 1,800 sf | $1,200,000 | $667/sf | +0.0% |
| Jan 24, 2014 | 1A | 2 BR · 1,800 sf | $1,350,000 | $750/sf | -3.2% |
Market read. Most recent trades (2025) cleared a median $719/sf across 1 sale. Median listing discount 5.0% 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 1-01345-0005) 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
Underwrite the corporation, not just the apartment. Sixteen shareholders, a $2.35 million consolidated underlying mortgage from December 2022 with terms not disclosed in the recording, no commercial income, and a lean staff. Ask the managing agent for the last two years of financial statements and the current budget, and ask specifically about the mortgage's rate and maturity — in a building this size, a refinancing is a maintenance event for everyone.
The 1931 building is the asset and the liability. Prewar masonry with a 1970s mechanical rebuild is now nearly fifty years past that rebuild. Ask what has been done to the roof, the facade, the elevator and the heating plant since, and read the DOB filing history alongside the answer.
Do not assume landmark protection. The building looks designated and is not. Nothing in LPC's database covers this lot.
Get the policy stack in writing before you offer. Nothing is published. Run the Co-op Board Qualification Calculator against whatever financing ceiling and liquidity expectation the managing agent gives you, not against a market average.
What to know if you’re selling
Lead with the provenance, correctly stated. A 1931 Delano & Aldrich clubhouse converted to sixteen large apartments is a better story than "1979 co-op," and it is the true one. Have the offering plan language ready; buyers' counsel will check the public record and find the 1979 date.
Price against scarcity, not against the building's own last trade. With roughly one transfer a year, your comparable set lives outside the building. Positioning is a research exercise, and we do it from the Research Library.
Be ready for board-package questions you cannot answer from marketing materials. In a sixteen-unit corporation the buyer's attorney will go straight to the financials and the underlying mortgage. Assemble those before listing.
Comparable buildings
If you're considering 301 East 52nd Street, also evaluate:
- 244 East 52nd Street (Minuet) — the fifteen-residence new-development condominium a few blocks west; the boutique-scale condo alternative
- 226 East 52nd Street — small-building Turtle Bay ownership stock on the same street
- 216 East 52nd Street — another intimate East 52nd Street house
- 323 East 52nd Street — the immediate condominium neighbor on the block
- 345 East 52nd Street — full-service Turtle Bay co-op scale, for the carrying-cost contrast
- 305 East 51st Street — comparable Turtle Bay boutique ownership one block south
- 342 East 53rd Street — small-scale ownership on the next block north
- 400 East 51st Street (The Grand Beekman) — the full-service condominium alternative toward Beekman
- 455 East 51st Street — the prewar Beekman cooperative comparison at the river end
The neighborhood
For the full corridor — architecture, schools, transit, and pricing across Midtown East — read The Roebling Team Guide to Midtown East.
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 301 East 52nd Street?
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