38 Livingston Street (The Colonial)

Six stories of brick in a restrained Colonial Revival manner, on a 5,927-square-foot lot carrying roughly 27,690 square feet of building — a dense, efficient plan for its date, with light courts at the flanks and rear that appear in the conversion-era engineering reports.

The apartment mix is narrow and easy to read from the share schedule. Two lines run four rooms with one bath, at share loads climbing from 206 on the first floor to 256 on the sixth; two lines run three rooms with one bath, from 143 to 181; and a single small unit of two rooms carries 110 shares. Nothing here is large. What varies is floor, exposure and condition: top-floor apartments pick up east and north light and Downtown Brooklyn views over the low-rise district, and the difference between an original prewar interior and a gut renovation sets the spread far more than line position does.

The 1986 sponsor's engineering re-inspection, filed in answer to Attorney General queries, is a useful record of the bones: exterior walls sound with localized brick cracking at the rear, most window lintels serviceable, fire escapes needing repair and paint, rear concrete decking to be replaced, dumbwaiter shafts to be sealed to code. Those items are history now, but they map the building's recurring capital vocabulary — parapet, lintels, rear yard, fire escapes.

38 Livingston Street Apartment Corporation has run the building since the 1986 closings. The conversion budget describes a genuinely small operation: not subject to a union agreement, staffed by a resident superintendent, with management then performed by Gam Holding Corp. That basic shape — live-in super, elevator, laundry, storage — has held. The Roebling Research Library holds the offering plan and the first through eighth amendments, the bylaws, the proprietary lease, the house rules with their later amendments, the board-adopted sublet policy, the purchase application, and audited financial statements running from 1998–99 through 2013–14 — a long enough series to read maintenance growth, capital practice and reserve behavior at trend level rather than by snapshot. The sublet policy in the file was transmitted by Adventure Properties, Inc.; because agents change, the current agent should be confirmed rather than assumed. For a six-story 1914 masonry building the recurring capital items are predictable: FISP/LL11 façade cycles, parapet and lintel work, roof, elevator modernization and boiler life.

Subletting: The board-adopted policy on file permits a shareholder to sublet for up to 24 months within any continuous five-year period, after which at least one year must pass before a new period begins. New shareholders must occupy the apartment for two years before the board will consider an application. Terms are granted one year at a time, renewable on written request at least 30 days before expiry. The fee is 2 percent of annual maintenance in each of the first and second years, charged as additional rent; no sub-subleases are permitted, all apartment financing must be current, and the number of apartments already sublet is itself a factor the board weighs.

Pets: No bird or animal without the corporation's express written permission, revocable at any time; dogs carried or on leash in all public portions.

Moving and alterations: Moves on weekdays between 8:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. only, with 72 hours' written notice to the superintendent and a $250 refundable deposit. Noisy work weekdays between 8:30 a.m. and 5:00 p.m., floors covered to 80 percent by rugs or equivalent. A house-rule amendment requires radiators to be fully open or fully closed, with resulting water damage the shareholder's liability — a small rule that tells you the building still runs on its original steam distribution.

Flip tax, financing minimums, pied-à-terre, washer-dryer: Not documented in the papers on file; confirm against the current house rules and purchase application during diligence.

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 $1,186/sf across 2 sales. The building has traded as recently as 2026. Median listing discount -1.9% over ask.

Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 3-00268-0030) 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 unit count is clean. City records and the 1986 conversion schedule both say 24 apartments — no combination history to untangle, and a share ledger your attorney can reconcile in an afternoon.

Read the sublet policy before assuming flexibility. Two years of owner-occupancy first, then a maximum of 24 months in any five-year window, at 2 percent of annual maintenance. This is a policy written for owner-occupants.

Ask what is undocumented. Flip tax, financing minimums and pied-à-terre practice do not appear in the papers on file. Management's current written answers control, and we obtain them as standard practice.

Expect a small building's economics, and a genuine locational trade. Twenty-four apartments carry the whole capital plan, so ask for the assessment history and the reserve balance and read the long financial series rather than a single year. And walk the block at 8:30 a.m.: landmark district on one side, Borough Hall on the other.

Name the building and the architect. "The Colonial" is on the awning and in common use; the Robert Lyons attribution in the LPC record gives a listing a pedigree line most Livingston Street prewars cannot claim.

Sell the commute honestly and hard. For buyers working in Downtown Brooklyn, the Financial District or Midtown, this address is a materially better daily proposition than the Promenade blocks at a materially lower price.

Lead with surviving period detail. Wainscoting, leaded glass and original tile photograph well and are increasingly scarce in the district's small co-ops.

Price against the district's small prewar set, and put the sublet policy in the deal room. The correct comps are Livingston, Schermerhorn and Clinton Street co-ops of similar scale, not the Montague corridor's heavily staffed buildings. Buyers' attorneys will ask about subletting; a copy of the board's written policy answers it before it becomes a delay.

If you're considering 38 Livingston Street, also evaluate:

• 11 Schermerhorn Street — Robert Lyons's other 1914 Brooklyn Heights apartment house, a few minutes east; the direct pedigree comparable
• 77 Livingston Street — prewar co-op peer on the same street
• 75 Livingston Street — the tower co-op at Court Street; the neighborhood's tall prewar alternative
• 130 Clinton Street — prewar elevator co-op two blocks west, closer to the district's core
• 40 Clinton Street — larger full-service Clinton Street co-op
• 96 Schermerhorn Street (Boerum Court) — service-heavy prewar co-op at the district's southern edge
• 76 Schermerhorn Street (The Symon) — the condominium alternative in the same submarket
• 110 Livingston Street — the McKim, Mead & White Board of Education building converted to condominiums, a block east