- Year built
- 1922
- Type
- Cooperative
- Units
- 58
- Floors
- 17
- Landmark
- Designated
- Flip tax
- Transfer fee tiered by when the SELLING shareholder originally purchased: 1% of sale price if the apartment was originally purchased before June 12, 2013; 2% of sale price if originally purchased on/after June 12, 2013
- Financing
- Maximum financing allowed is 75%
- Subletting
- Permitted only with Board of Directors consent/approval
- Washer / dryer
- Not permitted by default
- Pets
- Pets allowed
- Trust / LLC
- Not explicitly stated as a board policy
- Managing agent
- The Lovett Company, LLC
Compiled by The Roebling Research Desk from building documents and current market data. Board policies can change by amendment — confirm at the offer stage. As of 2018.
Every recorded sale at this building, 2003–2026
Bedroom-by-bedroom medians, the full transfer record, and how units trade against ask.
- 1BR median
- $1.5M
- Recent range
- $740K – $2M
- Listing discount
- 3.2%
- Recorded transfers
- 85
39 Fifth Avenue is the historical anchor of the Lower Fifth Avenue Gold Coast. Built in 1922 by Bing & Bing in collaboration with Emery Roth, the 17-story building was the first tall apartment building on Lower Fifth Avenue — the structural opening of the 1920s construction cycle that, over the following seven years, would replace the corridor's 19th-century mansion-and-rowhouse fabric with the prewar cooperative inventory that defines the corridor today.
Bing & Bing — the development partnership of Leo S. and Alexander S. Bing — was, alongside the Helmsleys, Tishmans, and a small handful of other 1920s Manhattan developers, among the most consequential builders of the city's luxury apartment-house tradition. The Bing & Bing partnership produced approximately a dozen apartment houses in collaboration with Emery Roth between roughly 1920 and 1931, including the buildings at 299 West 12th Street, 302 West 12th Street, 45 Christopher Street, and the broader West Village and Lower Fifth Avenue concentration that established the development team as the dominant builder of downtown luxury cooperative inventory in the 1920s. 39 Fifth Avenue sits at the front of that body of work — the first of the partnership's tall apartment-house commissions on Lower Fifth Avenue and the project that opened the corridor to the broader prewar cooperative cycle.
Roth's architectural register at 39 Fifth is Spanish Renaissance — dark brown brick with terracotta loggia detail at the third story, a configuration that produces one of the most architecturally distinguished facades on Lower Fifth Avenue. Roth's broader 1922 vocabulary, executed at 39 Fifth, would continue to evolve across the subsequent decade and would inform the architect's later, larger Park Avenue and Central Park West commissions. For Lower Fifth Avenue specifically, the Roth credential at 39 Fifth is a structural pedigree marker — and one that distinguishes the building from the Sugarman & Berger and Boak & Raad attributions that define much of the rest of the corridor.
The cooperative conversion in 1986 placed 39 Fifth in the middle of the broader Lower Fifth Avenue conversion cycle. The 58-apartment scale is materially smaller than the larger cooperatives on the corridor (One Fifth's ~180 units, the Brevoort's 296, 24 Fifth's 419) and meaningfully larger than the most boutique inventory (43 Fifth's 42, 45 Fifth's ~63). The mid-size scale produces a structurally distinct residential idiom — institutional enough to support a full-service amenity program, intimate enough to preserve a personal building culture.
For buyers, 39 Fifth represents the corridor's deepest architectural pedigree: Bing & Bing developer credential, Emery Roth architectural attribution, the historical anchor position as the first tall apartment building on Lower Fifth, and the mid-size 58-unit scale that supports a full-service operational program at intimate institutional culture.
Architecture and unit composition
The 58 cooperative apartments distribute across the building's 17 stories in configurations characteristic of Roth's 1922 vintage — substantial classic-six and classic-seven layouts, with apartment scale meaningfully larger than the one-bedroom-dominant boutique cooperatives on the corridor. Apartments retain the prewar signatures characteristic of Roth's 1922 vocabulary: substantial ceiling heights, formal entry galleries, library-living combinations, formal dining rooms, primary suites with closet infrastructure, and oak-strip flooring throughout.
The Spanish Renaissance facade — dark brown brick with the terracotta loggia detail at the third story — is the building's defining architectural feature and one of the most distinguished facade compositions on Lower Fifth Avenue.
Building operations
39 Fifth Avenue operates as a full-service cooperative with 24-hour doorman, live-in superintendent, fitness center, residents' lounge, bike storage, on-site laundry, and central storage. The amenity program is consistent with the building's mid-size cooperative scale and the corridor's broader prewar full-service tradition. Specific board policies on financing percentages, subletting frameworks, pied-à-terre permissions, pet rules, and flip-tax structure should be confirmed against the offering plan during due diligence.
Local Law 97
- 2024–2029 annual penalty
- $0 (under cap)
- 2030–2034 annual penalty
- $12,646/yr
- Per unit / month range
- $0 – $18
Recent sales
Recent transfers at this building, curated by The Roebling Team research desk. Apartment-level facts are independently verified before publishing; sale prices reflect the recorded transfer amount at the NYC Department of Finance.
| Date | Unit | Apartment | Price | PPSF | vs. Ask |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 2, 2026 | 10D | Closed Mar 26, 2026 at $1.762M (recorded transfer). 10D — 1BR/1BA on the mid-upper D-line. **Most recent 39 Fifth print** and pair with the Apr 28 #13D $1.85M close (recorded May 2026) — D-line scale showing tight upper-floor pricing band in early 2026. | $1,762,468 | off-mkt | |
| Mar 5, 2026 | 2B | 1 BR · 1 BA Closed Feb 25, 2026 (recorded Mar 4) at $1.5M — 5.96% under the $1.595M asking. 2B — 1BR/1BA. Substantial discount-to-ask on lower-floor B-line. | $1,500,000 | -6.0% | |
| Dec 26, 2025 | 1B | 1 BR · 1 BA Closed Dec 12, 2025 (recorded Dec 22) at $740K — **11.89% under the $839,900 asking**. 1B — 1BR/1BA. **Widest 2025 discount-to-ask at 39 Fifth** — $100K absolute-dollar gap on a lower-floor B-line. The lowest-priced public listing data-listed trade at 39 Fifth, reflecting ground-floor exposure constraints. | $740,000 | -11.9% | |
| Sep 8, 2025 | 6C | 1 BR · 1 BA Closed Sep 4, 2025 at $1.94M — 0.52% OVER the $1.93M asking. 6C — 1BR/1BA. Tight premium-to-ask close on mid-floor C-line. | $1,940,000 | +0.5% | |
| Jan 27, 2025 | 7B | 1 BR · 1 BA · 875 sf Closed Dec 23, 2024 (recorded Jan 17, 2025) at $1.8M (recorded transfer). 7B — 1BR/1BA at 875 sqft = ~$2,057/sqft. | $1,800,000 | $2,057/sf | off-mkt |
| Nov 14, 2024 | PHB | 3 BR Closed Nov 7, 2024 at **$19M** (recorded transfer; no public public listing data listing). PHB — penthouse trophy. **Largest single trade in the entire 39 Fifth dataset and the largest trophy print across the Lower Fifth Avenue Gold Coast in our annotation set** — a defining late-2024 trophy benchmark on the top of Roth's 1922 Spanish Renaissance landmark. | $19,000,000 | +0.0% | |
| Nov 12, 2024 | 13A | 1 BR · 1 BA · 860 sf Closed Jan 20, 2025 (recorded Nov 7, 2024 — pre-recorded) at $2M (recorded transfer; public listing data reported 13A at $2M 'can't find government record' — ACRIS confirms the trade at $2M). 13A — 1BR/1BA. Upper-floor A-line. | $2,000,000 | $2,326/sf | +0.0% |
| Mar 26, 2024 | 2A | 1 BR · 1 BA Closed Mar 22, 2024 (recorded Mar 25) at $1.5M — 3.23% under the $1.55M asking. 2A — 1BR/1BA. Lower-floor A-line. | $1,500,000 | -3.2% |
Market read. Most recent trades (2024) cleared a median $1,923/sf across 2 sales. Median listing discount 0.0% from the last ask.
The retrade record
Lines that have traded more than once in the public record — the building’s appreciation arc, apartment by apartment.
Other recent transfers
| Date | Unit | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Apr 28, 2026 | 13D | $1,850,000 |
| Apr 21, 2026 | 8D | $1,505,000 |
| Aug 5, 2021 | 4D | $1,550,000 |
| May 18, 2021 | 3A | $1,400,000 |
| Apr 15, 2021 | 10C | $1,500,000 |
| Jul 29, 2020 | 12B | $1,650,000 |
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 1-00568-0004) 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
The architectural pedigree is the structural feature. The Bing & Bing / Emery Roth combination at the 1922-vintage opening of the Lower Fifth Avenue cycle is the deepest architectural-pedigree credential on the corridor.
The 58-unit mid-size scale produces a specific operational character. Substantially larger than the boutique cooperatives (43 Fifth, 45 Fifth) and meaningfully smaller than the institutional corridor peers (24 Fifth, the Brevoort). The cooperative culture is correspondingly calibrated to the mid-size scale.
The classic-six and classic-seven apartment idiom is structural. Roth's 1922 layouts are meaningfully larger than the one-bedroom-dominant inventory at 45 Fifth and the studio-and-junior-one-bedroom inventory at 24 Fifth. The right building for buyers seeking the larger prewar configurations.
Greenwich Village Historic District protection applies. The 1922 Roth facade, the Church of the Ascension's adjacent Gothic Revival presence, and the broader corridor are all subject to LPC review.
Confirm operational specifics directly. Board policies on financing, subletting, pied-à-terre use, pets, and flip tax should be confirmed during due diligence.
What to know if you’re selling
Marketing should lead with the architectural anchor positioning. "First tall apartment building on Lower Fifth Avenue, Bing & Bing / Emery Roth 1922" is the structural marketing argument.
Pricing should reference the corridor's full-service prewar tier. Comparable buildings: One Fifth Avenue (Corbett 1927), 24 Fifth (Roth 1926), the broader 1920s Lower Fifth cooperative cycle.
Closing timelines are cooperative-standard. Plan for 60–90 days from contract through approval to closing.
Comparable buildings
If you're considering 39 Fifth Avenue, also evaluate:
- One Fifth Avenue — Corbett 1927; corridor anchor; full-service prewar peer
- 24 Fifth Avenue — Emery Roth 1926; corridor peer; the corridor's second Roth commission
- 45 Fifth Avenue — Sugarman & Berger 1925; boutique prewar peer
- 30 Fifth Avenue — 1923; immediate corridor peer; comparable vintage
- 33 Fifth Avenue — 1923; immediate corridor peer; comparable vintage
- 2 Fifth Avenue — Emery Roth & Sons 1951–52; mid-century postwar corridor peer
The Roebling Team at 39 Fifth Avenue
The Roebling Team at Compass works the Lower Fifth Avenue corridor as part of our broader Park-facing Manhattan practice — Central Park West, the Upper East Side, the Fifth Avenue inventory at both ends of Central Park, and the Greenwich Village Gold Coast that anchors the southern terminus of the Fifth Avenue residential spine. We publish this building profile because Lower Fifth Avenue buyers and sellers deserve building-specific intelligence — architectural attribution, board context, apartment-line comparable analysis — not generic neighborhood commentary.
If you're considering a purchase or sale at 39 Fifth, a 30-minute consultation is the right starting point.