33 Greene Street

Five stories of cast iron on a corner lot of roughly 65 by 99 feet, with the long Grand Street elevation and the Greene Street front both landmarked and both visible. The plate is wide — about 6,500 square feet of footprint — which is what produces loft floors of unusual depth and column spacing for a five-story building.

Residences are stacked as east and west lofts above the ground-floor commercial space; recorded share transfers run 1W, 3E, 4E, 5W and a combined 3W/4W duplex, which is how eight residential units now occupy what were originally more. A 2008 alteration reopened an existing masonry arch between two building sections and installed a fire-rated door — the kind of internal connection that produces combinations in a building like this. A 2009 application to add a penthouse was disapproved at plan examination, and the corresponding LPC rooftop-addition docket was withdrawn at staff level in 2012; no penthouse addition was built. A roof deck was permitted separately in 2020.

The facade has been worked on properly. LPC issued Certificates of Appropriateness for new storefront infill in 1997 and 2004, restorative-work amendments in 2016, a minor-work permit in 2019 covering protection of existing covered vault lights, and an areaway ironwork permit in 2020. A 188-foot sidewalk shed and pipe scaffold went up in 2016 for that campaign — the length of a full corner wrap.

SoHo lofts carry an occupancy question that most Manhattan apartments do not. Under the M1-5B zoning that governed the district for decades, residential use in these buildings was permitted as Joint Live-Work Quarters for Artists — JLWQA — and lawful occupancy required certification as an artist by the city. Certificates of occupancy in the district were written accordingly.

DOB's file for 33 Greene documents the classification directly. A 2009 application proposed to "add penthouse onto existing joint living/working quarters for artists." Alteration filings in 2011 and 2012 describe interior work in "joint live/work quarters" at the cellar and first floor. This is not an inference from the neighborhood; it is in the building's own filings.

The framework changed on December 15, 2021, when the City Council adopted the SoHo/NoHo neighborhood plan and mapped this lot into the Special SoHo-NoHo Mixed Use District. Three points matter to a purchaser:

• New JLWQA conversions are no longer permitted within the special district after that date.
• Permanent occupants whose residence began on or before December 15, 2021 are treated as artists whether or not they were ever certified — the certification gap for existing occupancies was closed.
• Units carrying a JLWQA designation can be converted to Use Group 2 residential by application to the Department of Buildings, which is how non-artist occupancies are legalized going forward.

What the rezoning did not do is rewrite existing certificates of occupancy automatically. The operative question is therefore narrow and answerable: what does the certificate of occupancy in force actually say? No certificate of occupancy for this building appears in DOB's online record — the building predates the electronic file, and the document must be pulled from DOB's records. Read it, ask the managing agent whether a use change was ever filed and where it stands, and have your attorney confirm before contract. This is the single most frequently missed item in a SoHo loft purchase.

This is a small, self-contained cooperative: eight residences, no amenity program, no staff footprint of the kind a large house carries. Heating and hot water plant was replaced in 2015 — two boilers and a gas hot-water heater under a single filing — and sprinkler modifications were filed in 2017 and 2018. The chimney was relined in 2016.

The corporation's borrowing history is the clearest window into its finances. ACRIS shows a $1.1 million mortgage plus a $200,000 facility placed in November 2003, replaced by a $2.2 million loan in January 2016, and refinanced to $1,880,000 recorded in February 2026. Borrowing down at a refinancing is the opposite of the usual pattern and generally indicates paydown from operations or from a capital assessment rather than new-money draw. Across eight residences the per-unit underlying debt is modest by SoHo standards. Ask the managing agent for the balance, the rate, the maturity and the reserve position — none of that is in the public record.

The ground floor is commercial and is classified separately in city records. In a corporation this small, the commercial component's contribution to the budget is a material line. Confirm how it is held, what it pays, and on what terms.

Nothing in the policy stack is published for this building. There is no public source for the financing ceiling, the minimum down payment, post-closing liquidity expectations, sublet policy, flip tax, pied-à-terre treatment, pets, or whether trusts and limited liability companies are entertained. Small SoHo loft cooperatives vary widely on all of it, and the variance is wide enough that assuming a market default will mislead you.

Obtain the offering plan, the proprietary lease, the by-laws, the house rules and the current financial statement from the managing agent, and confirm each term in writing before making an offer.

Landmark review governs the exterior. Windows, storefront, and street-visible rooftop equipment go through LPC; visible changes require a Certificate of Appropriateness. Build the review into any renovation timeline — LPC's file on this building shows through-window HVAC, louvre and grille applications going through the process as recently as 2017 and storefront and door work in 2024.

Recent sales

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.

Market read. $/sf is measured on the latest sales with reliable square footage (2022): a median $2,525/sf across 2 sales. The building has traded as recently as 2025. 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 1-00475-0056) 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.

The artist Cindy Sherman owned a live-work loft in the building and sold it in 2005, per press accounts of the sale.

Read the certificate of occupancy before anything else. Establish whether the residential floors are classified as Joint Living-Work Quarters for Artists or as Use Group 2 residential, and whether a use change has been filed. Do not treat the 2021 rezoning as a blanket cure.

Assume the board package is a real gate. Eight shareholders, a long shared history, and no published financing ceiling. Expect a full package with verified assets and income, a post-closing liquidity test set by practice rather than publication, and an interview. Start with the Co-op Board Qualification Calculator and build to the strictest plausible standard.

Underwrite the underlying mortgage and the assessment history. The corporation refinanced to $1.88 million in early 2026. Ask for the balance, the rate, the maturity, the reserve balance, and whether any assessment funded the paydown. Then run the Co-op Affordability Calculator with the real maintenance number.

Get the sublet, pied-à-terre, trust and flip-tax terms in writing. None of them are published. In an eight-unit house they are frequently restrictive, and the flip tax is a seller cost that has to be priced at the offer stage, not discovered at contract.

Price the landmark overhead into any renovation. Anything visible from Greene or Grand goes through LPC. The building's permit file shows the process working, but it adds months.

Correct the construction date in your materials. The tax record says 1910; LPC says 1873. The 1873 date, the cast-iron construction and the named architect are the building's actual story, and they hold up under a buyer's counsel's review in a way that a copied tax-roll year does not.

Document the 2026 refinancing. A cooperative that reduced its underlying debt at a refinancing has a story worth telling. Have the loan terms, the reserve balance and the recent capital record ready in the listing file.

Front-run the JLWQA question. It will surface in the buyer's attorney's first review. Having the operative certificate of occupancy and the board's position ready prevents a re-trade three weeks in.

Assemble the policy stack before listing. In a building where nothing is published, the seller who hands over the plan, lease, by-laws, house rules and financials on day one shortens the deal by weeks.

If you're considering 33 Greene Street, also evaluate:

• 57 Greene Street — cast-iron loft building on the same street; the closest like-for-like on architecture
• 93 Greene Street — boutique Greene Street loft building at comparable density
• 107 Greene Street — cast-iron loft condominium in the core district; the tenure alternative
• 45 Crosby Street — twelve-residence SoHo loft cooperative; the closest like-for-like on ownership form
• 465 West Broadway — SoHo loft cooperative with comparable share-ownership dynamics
• 477 Broome Street — SoHo loft cooperative two blocks west
• 105 Wooster Street — small landmarked loft building at similar unit count
• 161 Grand Street — southern-SoHo loft building on the same cross street
• 173 Grand Street — Grand Street loft building; the value-tier comparison
• 27 Wooster Street — landmarked loft conversion nearby