Somerset House

The two buildings stand on parallel streets along 34th Avenue, with the cooperative's common gardens forming part of their residential setting. The six-story brick form has regular apartment windows and a straightforward postwar organization. Birnbaum's design places repeated apartment types around the building circulation.

The Somerset inventory includes compact studios and larger one- and two-bedroom apartments. Entrance foyers, separate kitchens and dining areas appear in the plans. Some one-bedroom layouts contain an additional windowed room that has been used for dining or work, creating flexibility beyond the principal bedroom and living room.

Corner apartments have windows on more than one side. The larger two-bedroom homes can provide substantially more usable room area than the compact interior plans. Interior renovations have changed kitchens and finishes over time, while the original room positions continue to shape the layouts.

The common garden and patio offer outdoor space without requiring an apartment-specific terrace. Their availability is part of the cooperative's shared amenity structure. The setting along 34th Avenue also connects the building to the pedestrian use of the avenue immediately outside the property.

The complex operates with a live-in superintendent, elevators and shared laundry facilities. Additional services include a fitness room, storage lockers and bicycle storage. The garage adds a parking option to a location near a major subway interchange, although an apartment purchase does not ensure an immediately available space.

The association includes both street addresses. Repairs to shared facilities and the costs of the common grounds are therefore part of a cooperative operating at the complex level. The residential count describes that overall association, not a separate set of homes under each entrance.

Tax Class 2 applies to the property, with no statutory annual assessment-growth cap. No building-wide tax abatement is identified. Taxes are paid by the cooperative and enter its expenses alongside staffing, building systems and the operation of the shared facilities.

The R7-1 zoning entry shows a built FAR slightly below the stated residential allowance. That small numerical gap doesn't translate into a practical addition for either building. Existing building configuration and the cooperative's property rights remain relevant to any proposal to change its floor area.

Recent sales

Recent transfers at this building, from The Roebling Research Library. 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 to date) cleared a median $494/sf (floor-adjusted) across 3 sales. Floor-adjusted means each sale is restated to a constant mix of floors, so the figure can differ from the plain median of the sales listed above. Median listing discount 4.5% 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 4-01261-0001). Apartment-level facts (line, condition, asking-price context) curated and cross-verified in The Roebling Research Library. 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.

Sponsor-sale terms are apartment-specific. Some sponsor offerings have advertised different approval and rental terms from ordinary resales. A purchaser should establish whether the apartment actually carries those rights and how long they survive a transfer; a sponsor listing elsewhere in the complex does not change the rules for a shareholder resale.

• Washington Plaza: a nearby cooperative with substantial landscaped common space for comparing garden setting and the scale of shared operations.

• Colonial Court: another Jackson Heights cooperative in the immediate area, useful for comparing apartment proportions and building scale.

• The Crescent House: a farther postwar elevator cooperative in Astoria, relevant to buyers who prioritize parking and shared outdoor space.

• Plymouth Hall: a Sunnyside elevator co-op within a condominium, useful for comparing older apartment plans and the ownership structure.

• Lane Towers: a similarly sized postwar residential association in Forest Hills, with a tower form and more extensive staffed service.