35 West 92nd Street

Twelve stories of brick above a stone base, with terra cotta and ironwork at the entrance and cornice line, in what LPC classifies as a neo-Romanesque idiom — a fairly rare label for a 1930 Manhattan apartment house, and a reminder that the historicist vocabularies were still in play on the side streets when Central Park West had already gone Art Deco. The plan is built around an interior courtyard, which is why the building's footprint covers only about two-thirds of its lot and why so many lines get light on two sides rather than one.

Apartments run on a letter system, A through G on the typical floor, with a penthouse level above. Layouts run from studios and one-bedrooms through classic sixes, and there has been steady combination work: DOB records an apartment combination in 2001 (the 3F/3G pair, with a kitchen removed), further combinations in 2004 and 2009, and a penthouse renovation in 2012. That history is why unit counts differ between the audited statements, PLUTO and DOB, and why line-by-line comparables here should be read against a floor plan rather than a letter. The courtyard slab, its drains and the associated piping were replaced under a 2012 filing.

Staffing is conventional for a building of this size and vintage: an attended lobby, a live-in superintendent, and a porter staff covered by the Building Service 32BJ collective bargaining agreement, with the corporation contributing to the union's multiemployer pension fund. Payroll and related costs run about 31% of total expenses and real estate taxes about 39% — a tax-heavy expense profile typical of a converted prewar co-op with a modest underlying mortgage. Laundry runs under a service contract; bicycle storage and storage bins are billed separately, with bin income designated to reserves.

The heating plant was converted to gas under a 2014 DOB filing that also installed a new chimney liner, and the operating statements show gas heat as the dominant energy line with only a token fuel-oil budget behind it. Façade work has been recurrent rather than deferred: masonry repairs filed in 2014, a sidewalk shed, pipe scaffold and plywood fence in 2017 and 2018, a façade restoration filed in 2021, and an April 2019 façade contract recorded in the statements at $663,770. The building's Local Law 11 record reflects that arc — cycles 7 and 8 filed SWARMP (safe with a repair and maintenance programme), and the most recent cycle on file, cycle 9, filed SAFE.

Maintenance increases in the documents on file run 5.77% effective January 2019, 3.18% in the 2020 budget, and 2.82% effective January 2024. Separately, the corporation assesses shareholders roughly $150,000 to $175,000 a year and designates it to reserves; the statements describe that assessment as approximately offsetting the credits shareholders receive from the New York City co-op/condo tax abatement. For a specific apartment, reconcile the assessment against that apartment's abatement credit from its own statements rather than assuming they net out.

No reserve study exists. The auditors note, in both the older and the current statements on file, that management has not commissioned a study of the remaining useful lives of building components or the cost of future major repairs. That absence is common and it is also why the assessment history above is the best available proxy for what comes next.

This is a cooperative. A purchaser buys shares in 35 W. 92nd St. Corp. and a proprietary lease, not real property. The sale is subject to board approval after a complete board package and an interview, and the board is not required to give a reason for turning a purchaser down. Budget four to eight weeks from a fully executed contract to a board decision, and treat the package as the critical path of the transaction rather than a formality at the end of it.

Financing ceiling and post-closing liquidity. Neither is published, and neither appears in the plan amendments or financial statements on file. Both are set by the board and both change. Get the current maximum-financing percentage and the board's expectation for post-closing liquidity — usually expressed as some multiple of monthly maintenance plus debt service — from the managing agent before you make an offer.

Flip tax. One exists and it is designated to the reserve fund. The recorded receipts in the budgets on file are small enough that a percentage-of-price formula looks unlikely, but the documents we hold do not state the basis, and boards revise flip taxes. The number belongs in the seller's net sheet from the first conversation, so ask for the formula in writing.

Subletting. Permitted — the audited statements carry sublet fee income in several years. The terms that matter to a buyer, though, are the ones no public source answers: how long you must live in the apartment first, how many consecutive years you may sublet, and what the fee is. Ask for the sublet policy as a written document.

Pied-à-terre, trusts and entities. Undocumented in everything on file. A building with a long sponsor tail and an active sublet line is often flexible on occupancy, but do not assume it. Purchases in the name of a trust or an LLC are a separate question again; boards that permit them frequently still require an individual on the proprietary lease with a personal guarantee. Get the board's written position.

Unsold shares. The sponsor still holds a block of apartments, several occupied by rent-paying tenants. Lenders apply sponsor-concentration tests, and a pre-approval issued without that number is not worth much. Confirm the current count with the managing agent and give it to your lender early.

None of these terms is published by the corporation. All of them come from the managing agent, and all of them should be confirmed in writing for your transaction.

The lot carries the standard co-op/condo property tax abatement, effective since July 1, 1996 and present on the current DOF rolls. As noted above, the statements describe a reserve assessment of roughly the same aggregate value; reconcile the assessment and the abatement credit for the specific apartment before modelling the monthly.

There is no live J-51 here, and that is worth stating plainly, because neighbouring Upper West Side co-ops do carry one. DOF's historical J-51 series records three grants on this lot: a 1989 grant at a 90% abatement rate on $138,700 of qualifying alteration cost, initially twelve years and later extended to fourteen, whose pool ran out around tax year 2000; a 1994 grant on $51,300, exhausted in tax year 2005; and a 2007 grant on $41,200, whose remaining pool ran out in tax year 2017. A J-51 abatement stops when the abatable cost is used up regardless of the stated window, and all three pools here are used up. Nothing carrying a J-51 code appears on any DOF exemption or abatement roll for this lot from fiscal 2021 through the most recent published year; the only entries are the co-op/condo abatement and a handful of exemptions personal to individual shareholders.

The practical consequence: there is no burn-off cliff ahead of you at 35 West 92nd Street, and equally no abatement cushion. Real estate taxes at roughly 39% of the operating budget are already the largest expense in the building, and they are being paid at full assessment. Ask the managing agent for the current tax bill.

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. $/sf is measured on the latest sales with reliable square footage (2025): a median $1,017/sf (floor-adjusted) across 1 sale. The building has traded as recently as 2026. Median listing discount 1.5% 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 1-01206-0017). 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.

Ask about the 2027 balloon first. The underlying mortgage is $5,300,000, interest only at 3.40%, with the entire principal due May 1, 2027 and the companion credit line terminating the same day. Ask the managing agent what the board's plan is, what indicative pricing it has seen, and what the debt-service line looks like in the current budget. Model the potential refinancing effect alongside taxes, insurance, payroll, reserves and capital work; the loan terms alone do not establish the largest future cost variable.

Then ask about the basement column project. The July 2023 assessment of $1,524,331 funded roughly $1.5 million of steel column reinforcement and waterproofing in the basement. Establish whether that work is complete, whether it came in on budget, and whether any further assessment has followed.

Then ask for the unsold-share count, the financing ceiling and the liquidity expectation. All three are gating items, none is published, and all three determine whether your financing survives the board package.

Landmark status is real here. The building is in the Upper West Side / Central Park West Historic District and DOB flags every filing landmarked. If your renovation touches windows, the entrance or anything visible from the street, price the Landmarks permit path into your timeline.

Confirm the policy stack in writing. Pets, pied-à-terre, sublet seasoning and term, in-unit laundry, and the flip tax formula. None of it is published, and all of it moves.

Get ahead of the mortgage question. Provide the documented 2027 balloon and interest-only terms early, with any later amendments or refinancing arrangements. Present the terms alongside current reserves and documented capital work so buyers can assess the financial position.

Document the capital work you paid for. If your line paid into the 2023 basement assessment and the façade programme, say so — a buyer is otherwise pricing the risk that the same work is still ahead.

Sell the block, not just the apartment. Half a block to Central Park, inside the historic district, a courtyard and a play area, an attended lobby, and the B and C at 96th Street with the 1, 2 and 3 at 96th and Broadway. Describe those features so buyers can assess park access, transit and on-site amenities against their needs.

Price on the plan, not the letter. After two decades of combinations, the floor plan is the comparable.

If you're considering 35 West 92nd Street, also evaluate:

• 322 Central Park West — George and Edward Blum, 1926; the parkfront corner of this same tax block
• 325 Central Park West — George F. Pelham, 1899–1900; prewar parkfront co-op on the block
• 327 Central Park West — Nathan Korn, 1928–29; the parkfront alternative at West 93rd Street
• 65 West 95th Street — 1928 side-street co-op three blocks north; a more permissive policy stack at a lower price point
• 35 West 90th Street — the closest like-for-like side-street building two blocks south
• 45 West 89th Street — prewar side-street co-op near the park's western edge
• 100 West 94th Street — comparable Upper West Side building two blocks north
• 110 West 94th Street — side-street comparable at a similar scale
• 353 Central Park West — parkfront co-op at West 95th Street
• 360 Central Park West — 1928 Rosario Candela building at West 96th Street; verify its current ownership form and transfer requirements