393 West End Avenue

The building presents as a full-block-corner masonry mass on the southeast corner of West End Avenue and 79th Street, in brick, cast stone, stone and terra cotta over a limestone base. The ornamental concentration is at the entrance and the crown; the shaft is disciplined and largely unadorned, which is characteristic of West End Avenue's 1920s elevator-apartment idiom and of Goldner & Goldner's commercial work in it.

Interiors were reworked by CetraRuddy against the retained prewar shell. The delivered apartments hold the original proportions — the ceiling heights, the window rhythm, the separation between entertaining and sleeping space that a 1927 plan produces almost automatically — while carrying contemporary kitchens, baths, and in-unit laundry that a 1927 plan never anticipated. Layouts span one-bedroom residences at roughly 990 to 1,000 square feet through 1,200- to 1,800-square-foot two- and three-bedrooms, 2,700-square-foot four-bedroom configurations, and penthouse-level inventory at the top of the building.

The unit-line structure is worth understanding before pricing anything here. The reduction from 114 rental apartments to 75 condominium residences does not by itself establish the resulting floor plans or which lines repeat. Confirm combinations and the current arrangement from approved plans. Recorded transfers show lines A through H on lower and middle floors, thinning toward A, B and C at the top, plus a penthouse. Those transfer labels help identify transactions but do not prove that same-letter apartments have identical plans. Compare actual layout, floor, exposure, area and condition rather than relying on a building average or unit letter alone.

Amenity space runs to approximately 4,000 square feet and is unusually programmed for a conversion of this size: a Great Room, a club room available to residents for private events, a fitness center, a teen lounge and a separate children's playroom, and a lounge configured with a gaming station and enclosed nooks for remote work — a post-2020 amenity brief rather than a 2015 one. The landscaped interior courtyard, a bike room, a pet spa and a resident laundry room occupy the lower level, and there is a common roof deck.

The building runs as a full-service condominium with a 24-hour attended lobby and a live-in resident manager. That staffing level is a meaningful differentiator against the boutique conversions elsewhere on the Upper West Side, several of which operate on part-time attendance, and it is the correct comparison point when weighing common charges against smaller buildings in the same price band.

Because the property sits within the West End–Collegiate Historic District Extension, every exterior alteration — façade, windows, roof-level construction, storefront — requires Landmarks Preservation Commission approval. For buyers this cuts two ways. It governs any change to the elevation, and it lengthens and raises the cost of any future façade cycle. The building's Local Law 11 status and the current condition of the conversion-era envelope restoration should be confirmed from recent inspection reports for any transaction.

As with any recent sponsor condominium, converted or newly built, three items need checking: the sponsor's remaining obligations under the offering plan, the state of the reserve fund at handover, and the point at which unit owners took control of the board. A conversion adds its own questions about the existing building's condition. Those items are documented in the plan and in the condominium's financial statements, and both should be pulled before contract.

Pets: Permitted.

Pied-à-terre: Not documented; confirm in the declaration, bylaws and house rules.

Subletting: Permitted with conditions; leases run through the condominium's application and right-of-first-refusal process. Confirm the conditions and any minimum lease term with the managing agent.

LLC, trust and foreign ownership: Permitted.

Financing: Not documented; confirm in the declaration, bylaws and house rules.

Flip tax: No traditional flip tax is documented. A working capital contribution of approximately two months' common charges applies; confirm the current amount, and specifically whether it is charged again on resale, with the managing agent.

In-unit washer/dryer: Permitted and installed.

Property tax abatement: The NYC Co-op/Condo Property Tax Abatement requires the apartment to be the owner's primary residence. Purchases held in an LLC, or used as a pied-à-terre, forfeit it. Listing records at 393 West End Avenue show a substantially higher monthly tax figure for non-primary owners, and the difference is large enough to change a carrying-cost model materially. Run it against the specific unit before offer.

Recent sales

Recent closings 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 $1,649/sf (floor-adjusted) across 4 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 0.9% 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 1-01186-7501; each condominium apartment is its own tax lot). 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 from recorded condo declarations and offering plans.

Compare prewar condominium and cooperative alternatives explicitly. The building combines a retained prewar structure with condominium ownership. A premium over West End Avenue co-ops is not established without matched sales that account for interior area, condition, services, carrying costs and ownership restrictions.

Price the line, not the building. The recombined plan means adjacent unit lines can differ substantially in layout, light and exposure. Building averages are misleading here to an unusual degree.

Model the tax abatement question first. If the purchase is going into an LLC, or the apartment will not be a primary residence, the property tax line changes meaningfully. That belongs in the underwriting before the offer, not after the contract.

Pull the conversion documents. The offering plan, the sponsor's completed and outstanding obligations, the reserve fund position, board turnover, and the current budget are the diligence items specific to a recent conversion. All of them exist; ask for all of them.

Understand the resale evidence. Of four first resales in the recorded sales through September 2026, one closed about 10 percent below its 2023 purchase price and three closed at or above their purchase prices. That is knowable before you bid, and it should shape what you bid.

Lead with scarcity, and be specific about it. Prewar West End Avenue delivered as condominium is scarce. The 2019 conversion-law change, which raised the purchase threshold for a non-eviction conversion from 15 to 51 percent of units, is the reason, and it is a concrete, verifiable point that a well-informed buyer will respect.

The landmark designation is an asset in the marketing. The West End–Collegiate Historic District Extension puts exterior changes to the building and its neighbors under landmarks review. Say so.

Price against resale comparables, not against your purchase price. First resales here have closed from about 10 percent below to about 12 percent above the original purchase price, and the one that closed below it came after a long marketing period and a reduction from its initial ask. Price to the current resale comparables, not to your 2022–2024 contract price.

The service level supports the ask. A 24-hour attended lobby, a live-in resident manager, and roughly 4,000 square feet of programmed amenity space is a genuinely full-service package, and it distinguishes the building from the smaller Upper West Side conversions that compete on prewar character alone.

If you're considering 393 West End Avenue, also evaluate:

• The Apthorp (2207 Broadway) — Clinton & Russell 1908; the Upper West Side's other great prewar-rental-to-condominium conversion, at far greater scale
• The Belnord (225 West 86th Street) — 1908 Italian Renaissance Revival courtyard building converted to condominium, with a remaining rent-stabilized rental component
• 150 West 82nd Street (The Marlow) — George F. Pelham 1926, converted by BKSK Architects; the boutique version of the same prewar-conversion thesis
• 378 West End Avenue — COOKFOX Architects tower behind a restored 1915 building; the new-construction condominium alternative directly across the avenue
• 375 West End Avenue — Schwartz & Gross prewar cooperative on the adjacent corner; the co-op comparison at nearly identical location
• 300 West End Avenue — Schwartz & Gross prewar cooperative converted from rental in 1961; classic West End Avenue co-op economics
• 400 West End Avenue (The Wexford) — Margon & Holder cooperative; full shareholder ownership one block north
• 411 West End Avenue — George F. Pelham Jr. cooperative; another Pelham-family West End Avenue commission in co-op form
• 425 West End Avenue — turn-of-the-century Renaissance Revival cooperative, converted 1979
• 207 West 79th Street — Morris Adjmi Architects boutique condominium on the same cross street; contemporary rather than prewar