4 Downing Street
4 Downing Street, Brooklyn, NY 11238
BBL 3019697504 · BIN 3056397
- Year built
- 1920
- Type
- Condominium
- Units
- 10
- Floors
- 4
- Landmark
- No
Own an apartment here? See what it would sell for.
A Private Pricing Opinion — what your apartment at 4 Downing Street would likely sell for today, what it costs to sell, and what you’d walk away with — reviewed personally against condition, exposures, renovation quality, and the competition actually on the market.
This corner held one of Brooklyn's best-known buildings. The artist Arthur Wood bought the four-story brick tenement in 1979 and spent almost three decades building a sculptural superstructure on top of it: arches, salvaged-glass windows, and a tower rising far above the roofline. The New York Times covered it in 2002 and again in 2007, and it appears in the film Dave Chappelle's Block Party. A 2006 fire led to a vacate order, followed by a foreclosure. ACRIS shows the lender taking title in 2012 and two resales, the second in January 2014 for $4.1 million to Downing Quincy LLC, which became the condominium sponsor.
What came next matters for tax purposes. Press reports describe the Broken Angel as demolished in 2014. The Department of Buildings record is more specific: 4 Downing was filed as an alteration, stripped back to the original four-story tenement and gut-renovated, not a new building. That is why the eight flats qualified for J-51, a city tax exemption for renovating existing residential buildings. The vacant lot next door at 8 Downing got a new two-unit house under a new-building permit, and that house has no exemption. So one condominium holds two different tax positions, and the unit determines which one a buyer gets.
This page does not cover 335 Grand Avenue. The Clinton Hill Condominium at 335 Grand Avenue is on the same tax block (lot 7501, condominium no. 256) and is a different regime: 24 three-story houses built in 1988–89 through the New York City Partnership program. 4 Downing Street is condominium no. 3740 on lot 7504, a 2015 conversion plus a new building, with its own board and budget.
Architecture and unit composition
At 4 Downing there are two units per floor, A and B, on four floors served by an elevator. The ground-floor units, 1A and 1B, each have a private rear yard. The top-floor units, 4A and 4B, each have a private roof terrace and skylights. The offering plan warns that some ground-floor space labelled "Accessory Space," "Recreation Room" or "Private Storage" on the floor plans cannot legally be used as a bedroom or hold a full bathroom. Buyers of 1A, 1B and TH1 should read their floor plan against that warning.
8 Downing holds two townhouse units. TH1 is on the lower levels with front and rear yards, and TH2 is above it with a terrace, a roof terrace and a front stoop. The plan also flags lot-line windows. If the neighboring lot to the north is built on, the board will seal those windows as a common expense. According to the plan, the affected bedrooms would still meet light-and-air rules.
Building operations
This is a ten-unit condominium with no documented staff and no amenity program. Owners pay their own heating, cooling and utility costs, and the TH units also pay for their own hot-water gas. The first-year budget in the plan did not fund window or elevator replacement, which remain board responsibilities paid as common expenses. Owners maintain their assigned yards, terraces and skylights. The board handles structural repairs, roofs and exterior walls. Audited financial statements for 2019 and 2020 are on file in The Roebling Research Library and are reviewed with clients during diligence.
Sponsor inventory is no longer an issue. ACRIS shows all ten units conveyed by the sponsor to separate buyers between December 2015 and July 2016.
Recent sales
Ten units with little turnover make for a thin comparable set. ACRIS shows only a handful of resales since the 2015–16 sellout, and the building's comparable set is really four products: garden-level flats with yards, mid-floor flats, top-floor flats with roof terraces, and two townhouse units priced against Clinton Hill single-family and two-family houses more than against flats. Resale pricing is per square foot against Clinton Hill conversion and boutique condominium product, and the J-51 position has to be part of the comparison. Measured through 2025, the last complete year, demand for small-building Clinton Hill condominiums with private outdoor space remained end-user driven. Unit-level transaction history is maintained in The Roebling Research Library and shared with clients during diligence.
The retrade record
Lines that have traded more than once in the public record — the building’s appreciation arc, apartment by apartment.
Recent closings at this building, sourced from NYC Department of Finance records. Apartment-level detail (line, condition, asking-price context) verified upon consultation request.
| Date | Unit | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Jul 9, 2026 | 1A | $2,100,000 |
| Sep 22, 2025 | 2A | $1,675,000 |
| Aug 2, 2023 | 1B | $2,200,000 |
| Nov 12, 2021 | 4A | $1,875,000 |
| Nov 9, 2021 | 3B | $1,550,000 |
| Mar 23, 2018 | 4B | $1,700,000 |
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 3-01969-7504) 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.
Buying here? Condo closing costs with a mortgage typically run 3 to 6% of the price. See NYC co-op and condo closing costs, line by line.
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What to know if you’re buying
Check which building the unit is in. A 4 Downing flat carries the J-51 exemption, which applies to the increase in assessed value from the renovation. TH1 and TH2 pay full taxes. Model the actual bill, not a building average.
Model the J-51 phase-out. The Department of Finance records a 14-year term with benefits starting in 2018. Under the standard 14-year schedule, the exemption is full for ten years and then phases out over four, so the step-up falls in the late 2020s to early 2030s. The roll's percentage fields are not consistent from year to year, so get the current exemption level and phase-out years from the Department of Finance for the specific unit.
Read the floor plan for legal bedrooms. Buyers of 1A, 1B and TH1 in particular.
Ask about the lot-line windows. Find out whether anything has been filed on the lot to the north.
What to know if you’re selling
Lead with the outdoor space. Seven of the ten units have a private yard or terrace, which is the building's main selling point.
Explain the tax position early. For a 4 Downing flat, show the J-51 schedule and the step-up years up front. For a TH unit, present the full bill as the base case.
Use the history, briefly. The Broken Angel lineage is well known. The buyer is paying for the 2015 renovation.
Comparable buildings
If you're considering 4 Downing Street, also evaluate:
- 335 Grand Avenue: the 1988–89 Partnership condominium on the same tax block, with houses instead of flats
- 10 Quincy Street: 46-unit adaptive-reuse condominium around the corner
- 95 Lexington Avenue: 20-unit prewar conversion a block north
- 105 Lexington Avenue: 32-unit conversion next to 95 Lexington
- 532 Clinton Avenue: 14-unit Clinton Hill new construction with no abatement
- 320 Washington Avenue: conversion of an 1851 building inside the historic district
- 111 Vanderbilt Avenue: low-rise Clinton Hill condominium houses
More Clinton Hill buildings
- 345 Clinton Avenue (Clinton Hill Co-ops, South Campus) — 1945 co-op
- 360 Clinton Avenue — 1928 co-op
- 385 Clinton Avenue (The Richelieu) — 1897 co-op
- 450 Grand Avenue (Four Fifty Grand) — 2023 condominium by Isaac & Stern Architects
- 475 Washington Avenue — 1907 condop
- 500 Waverly Avenue (Waverly Brooklyn) — 2017 condominium
The neighborhood
For the full neighborhood — its buildings, character, and market — read The Roebling Team Guide to Clinton Hill.
How to read the facts on this page. Items attributed to an offering plan describe the building as it was offered at that filing — unit mix, square footage, the amenity program as planned. They are not a statement about how the building operates today. Tax and compliance figures are sourced separately to current City records and carry their own dates. House rules, staffing and fee policy can change by board resolution without any public filing: treat every policy line here as a starting point for diligence and confirm it with the managing agent. Where this page compares one building or neighborhood to another, that is our analysis of the recorded record — it names the measure, the period and the sample it rests on, and it is an observation about medians rather than a prediction about any particular apartment.
Considering a move at 4 Downing Street?
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