Gracie Towne House (401 East 89th Street)
401 East 89th Street, New York, NY 10128
Yorkville, Upper East Side
BBL 1015697502 · BIN 1076331
- Year built
- 1960
- Type
- Condop
- Units
- 197
- Floors
- 18
- Landmark
- No
- Pets
- Pets permitted
- Pied-à-terre
- Allowed
- Financing
- Up to approximately 80 percent financing (condop / co-op model — a 20 percent minimum down payment)
Every recorded sale at this building, 2003–2026
Bedroom-by-bedroom medians, the full transfer record, and how units trade against ask.
- 2BR median
- $1.1M
- Recent range
- $525K – $2.6M
- Listing discount
- 4.8%
- Recorded transfers
- 101
Own an apartment here? See what it would sell for.
A Private Pricing Opinion — what your apartment at Gracie Towne House 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.
Gracie Towne House is a full-service post-war building at the corner of First Avenue and 89th Street in far-eastern Yorkville, and its defining fact is its ownership structure: it is a condop. A co-op corporation — 401 East 89th Street Owners Corp. — owns the residential portion, so buyers purchase shares and finance on a cooperative model, but the house rules carry condominium-style flexibility. The building's DOF-registered owner name ends in "Owners Corp.," which reflects that cooperative-share structure rather than a traditional restrictive co-op.
That structure is the entire value proposition, and this building runs it at one of the most permissive settings in the corridor. Where a conventional Yorkville co-op typically requires a board interview, caps financing, charges a flip tax, and restricts subletting to a handful of years, Gracie Towne House conducts no board interview, charges no flip tax, permits unlimited subletting with no sublet fee, allows up to roughly 80 percent financing, welcomes pied-à-terre and guarantor and co-purchase structures, and sits on owned land with no ground lease. The result is a full-service building that is structurally accessible to first-time buyers, pied-à-terre buyers, and investors alike — and priced on a cooperative (per-room) convention that keeps absolute prices below the condominium tier.
The location is the honest trade. The building sits far east near the river, beside Asphalt Green and near Carl Schurz Park — quiet, green, and river-adjacent — with a longer walk to the subway than a mid-corridor address. Buyers who value the setting and the flexible rules read the location as a feature; buyers who prioritize transit weigh it.
Building operations
Gracie Towne House operates as a full-service building with a 24-hour doorman and concierge and a live-in resident manager. The amenity package includes a fitness center, a children's playroom, laundry on every floor, an on-site valet parking garage, a bike room, storage, a renovated lobby, and a rooftop terrace. There is no pool — a reasonable omission given the building's position directly beside Asphalt Green's Olympic-size pool complex.
Because the building owns its land, there is no ground-lease reset risk — a meaningful structural advantage over corridor buildings that carry ground leases. Buyers should still review the building's financials, reserve position, and any assessments during due diligence.
Structure and unit composition
Because Gracie Towne House is a condop, apartments transact as cooperative shares and are priced by the room, even as the building offers condominium-style flexibility. The 197 residences run from studios and one-bedrooms — which dominate the stock and make the building a natural first-purchase and pied-à-terre option — through two- and three-bedroom homes. The larger A-line layouts carry the building's premium pricing.
Philip Birnbaum's white-brick post-war design places recessed balconies on many lines and lays out efficient, livable plans that renovate well. Interior finish quality varies across the inventory; apartment-level diligence is the right reference for any given line and floor.
Policy framework
The policy framework is the building's structural value proposition and warrants explicit treatment:
Ownership structure: Condop — shares in 401 East 89th Street Owners Corp., which owns the residential portion. Transactions and financing follow a cooperative model; house rules carry condominium-style flexibility.
Board interview: None. This is a defining feature and a material accessibility advantage over the corridor's traditional co-ops.
Financing: Up to approximately 80 percent (a 20 percent minimum down payment).
Flip tax / transfer fee: None — a structural net-proceeds advantage on the seller side.
Subletting: Permitted without limit and with no sublet fee — unusually flexible.
Pied-à-terre: Permitted.
Guarantors / co-purchasing / investors: Permitted.
Land: Owned by the cooperative — no ground lease.
Local Law 97
- 2024–2029 annual penalty
- $0 (under cap)
- 2030–2034 annual penalty
- $109,386/yr
- Per unit / month range
- $0 – $46
- Modeled exposure split equally across 197 units (the city tax-lot count). Not an assessed amount; co-op shareholders are typically charged by share allocation.
Source: NYC LL84 benchmarking and PLUTO · The Roebling Research Library. City record last verified September 2026.
See full Local Law 97 analysis — emissions history, scenarios, methodology →Facade safety — Local Law 11
The latest available FISP filing classified the facade as Safe — no repairs were required at that inspection. Facade inspections run on a fixed five-year cycle; future inspection, repair, and any assessment decisions remain building-specific.
How to read this, and where it comes from
QEWI = Qualified Exterior Wall Inspector — the licensed engineer the city requires to sign the report (the independent expert, not the managing agent).
Source: NYC DOB facade filings (FISP) · The Roebling Research Library. City record last verified September 2026.
Management & transfer contacts
- Sublet policy
- Liberal sublet policy allowed
- Pied-à-terre
- Allowed (guarantors, co-signing, pied-a-terres permitted)
- Notable fees
- Max financing 90%; seller managing agent's fee $900 (individual) / $1,000 (estate); NY State transfer tax $0.05/share
Recent sales
Gracie Towne House trades as a flexible, accessible full-service Yorkville building. Recent closings have run broadly in the $1,000 to $1,100 per share-equivalent square foot range, with the studios and one-bedrooms serving as the building's currency and the larger A-line homes carrying the premium. Because the building is priced on a cooperative (per-room) convention, comparable analysis should reference the room count and layout rather than a strict per-square-foot figure.
The building's flexibility — no interview, no flip tax, unlimited sublets, 80 percent financing — supports a consistently active resale market and a wide buyer pool. Pricing should reference recent comparable trades on the specific line rather than a single building-wide average.
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.
| Date | Unit | Apartment | Price | PPSF | vs. Ask |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 18, 2026 | 3CD | 3 BR · 2.5 BA · 1,900 sf | $1,815,000 | $955/sf | -6.9% |
| May 5, 2026 | 7N | 2 BR · 1 BA · 1,100 sf | $1,130,000 | $1,027/sf | -12.7% |
| Jul 30, 2025 | 7A | 3 BR · 2.5 BA | $1,650,000 | +0.0% | |
| Nov 12, 2024 | 8P | 2 BR · 2 BA · 1,038 sf | $1,140,000 | $1,098/sf | +4.1% |
| Jul 22, 2024 | 11D | 1 BA | $525,000 | -4.5% | |
| Jun 26, 2024 | 6C | 3 BR · 2.5 BA · 1,550 sf | $1,540,000 | $994/sf | -12.3% |
| May 8, 2024 | 10K | 3 BR · 2 BA | $1,566,000 | -5.0% | |
| Mar 22, 2024 | 6A | 3 BR · 2 BA · 1,503 sf | $1,550,000 | $1,031/sf | -22.3% |
Market read. Most recent trades (2026) cleared a median $1,090/sf (floor-adjusted) across 2 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 2.1% from the last ask — a recurring negotiation gap worth pricing into any offer or listing strategy.
The retrade record
Lines that have traded more than once in the public record — the building’s appreciation arc, apartment by apartment.
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 1-01569-7502). 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.
Closed rents at Gracie Towne House, last 36 months
| Size | Leases | Median / month |
|---|---|---|
| 1 bedroom | 2 | $3,575 |
| 2 bedroom | 4 | $6,050 |
7 closed leases, October 2023 to September 2026. Most recent lease August 2026. Sizes with fewer than 2 leases are not shown. Compiled by The Roebling Team at Compass from closed leases.
At the recent median sale of $1.65M (4 transfers since 2024), a buyer putting 25% down would pay about $31,050 to close, or 1.9% of the price.
- Mansion tax: $16,500
- No mortgage recording tax or title insurance on a co-op purchase
- Attorneys, lender, building fees and filings: $14,550
Assumes a resale (the seller pays transfer taxes), a $4,500 attorney fee and a mortgage on the rest.
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What to know if you’re buying
The flexible condop structure is the point. No board interview, no flip tax, unlimited subletting with no fee, 80 percent financing, pied-à-terre and investor use permitted — one of the most accessible full-service buildings in the corridor.
Owned land removes ground-lease risk. The cooperative owns the land, so there is no ground-rent reset to model.
Weigh the transit trade. The far-east river-side location is quiet and green but a longer walk to the subway.
Confirm current terms at offer stage. Condop rules can evolve; confirm financing, sublet, and fee terms with the managing agent and offering plan.
What to know if you’re selling
The flexibility is the marketing story. No interview, no flip tax, unlimited sublets, and 80 percent financing widen the buyer pool well beyond the traditional co-op purchaser.
No flip tax is a net-proceeds advantage. Most corridor co-ops carry one; this building does not.
Price on the cooperative convention. Reference room count, layout, and the specific line's recent comparables.
Comparable buildings
If you're considering Gracie Towne House, also evaluate:
- 1175 York Avenue (York River House) — Lenox Hill condop with a comparable flexible-ownership structure
- 400 East 84th Street (The Strathmore) — nearby Yorkville tower converting to condop, with a pool and squash court
- 400 East 85th Street — Yorkville full-service cooperative with an accessible policy framework
- 200 East 89th Street (The Monarch) — nearby Yorkville condominium with an indoor atrium pool
- 360 East 88th Street (Leighton House) — Polshek-designed Yorkville condominium
- The Kent (200 East 95th Street) — newer Carnegie Hill condominium (trade-up comparison)
More Upper East Side buildings
- The Strathmore (400 East 84th Street) — 1994 condop by Costas Kondylis & Partners
- 401 East 84th Street (The Dunhill) — new-construction condominium by Liebman & Liebman
- Bridge Tower Place (401 East 60th Street) — 2000 condominium by Costas Kondylis & Partners
- The Amherst (401 East 74th Street) — 1962 co-op
- 402 East 74th Street — 1937 co-op
- River East Plaza (402 East 90th Street) — condominium
The neighborhood
For the full corridor — architecture, transit, and pricing across Upper East Side — read The Roebling Team Guide to Upper East Side.
The full playbook — what goes in the package, how boards read your financials, the interview, and the timeline — plus sample cover, reference, and personal letters you can adapt.
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.
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