42 Ann Street (Keuffel & Esser Company Building)
42 Ann Street, New York, NY 10038
Financial District
BBL 1000917503 · BIN 1001266
- Year built
- 1892
- Type
- Condominium
- Units
- 7
- Floors
- 10
- Landmark
- Designated
- Amenities
- Virtual doorman, deeded storage conveying with the residences, bicycle racks. There is no staffed lobby
Every recorded sale at this building, 2015–2024
Price-per-square-foot over time, the line- and floor-premium curves, and every recorded sale.
- Median $/sf
- $1,063
- Listing discount
- 3.1%
- Recorded sales
- 14
- On record
- 2015–2024
Keuffel & Esser made the instruments American engineering was drawn with. Two German immigrants founded the firm on Nassau Street in 1867 as importers of drafting materials, moved to 127 Fulton Street in 1878, introduced imported slide rules in 1880 and began manufacturing them in America in 1891, and became the country's foremost producer. Their tapes and compasses were used on the Brooklyn Bridge; their surveying equipment went west with the railroads. By 1892 the four-story headquarters on Fulton Street had become too small, and the company commissioned De Lemos & Cordes to replace it.
What they got is the reason the building is a landmark. The Fulton Street façade is an argument about how a tall commercial building should be composed, made at the exact moment New York architects were working that question out: a cast-iron storefront that advertises the business in iron, a midsection organized around a two-story arched window under a sculptural relief of a helmet, shield and winged orb, and an upper section framed by Ionic pilasters and topped by a balustrade. The fifth-story lintels carry the dates 1867 and 1892. The Commission called it one of the best-preserved and most distinguished of the smaller late-nineteenth-century office buildings between the financial district and City Hall.
The company stayed 83 years and left in 1961. The land beneath it had been owned continuously since 1791 by the Minister, Elders and Deacons of the Reformed Protestant Dutch Church, which sold the property in 2004; designation followed in April 2005. The residential conversion came at the end of the decade, and the condominium in 2014–15.
The result is seven full-floor residences inside a landmark, on floor plates about twenty-five feet wide and a hundred and eighteen feet deep, with barrel-vaulted ceilings and windows on two streets. That is a genuinely scarce product. It is also a small, lightly serviced building whose exterior is under Landmarks jurisdiction and whose tax benefits have run out. All three of those facts belong in the same underwriting.
Architecture and unit composition
The building is a fireproof steel-and-cast-iron-framed structure roughly twenty-five feet wide, running the full block depth from Fulton Street through to Ann Street. That geometry produces the layouts: each residence occupies an entire floor and takes light from both ends, with the long middle of the plate depending on ceiling volume rather than glass. The barrel-vaulted ceilings — described in listing records at approximately thirteen and a half feet — are what make that middle work.
The two elevations are not equivalent. Fulton Street is the show façade, with the intact cast-iron storefront and the terra-cotta upper stories. Ann Street is the working elevation: buff brick, cast-iron base, brick piers, a corbeled cornice, a fire escape running the full height, and the surviving painted Keuffel & Esser advertisement on the west wall. The Ann Street portion is one story taller than the Fulton Street portion, which is why city records show ten floors against the Commission's eight-story description of the primary façade, and why a duplex residence occupies the ninth and tenth levels.
The commercial unit at the base is condominium lot 1008 and trades separately from the residences. Deeded storage conveys with the apartments.
Building operations
This is a seven-residence building with a virtual doorman and no staffed lobby. Bicycle racks and deeded storage are the amenity program. Fixed costs — elevator, water tank, heat, insurance, façade compliance — are spread across seven residential owners and one commercial owner, which makes the common charge per foot sensitive to any single capital item.
The building has run a normal maintenance cycle in public view, including a 2014 water-tank and steel-dunnage replacement filed while the condominium was being created, a 2015 sidewalk-shed installation, and a 2016 filing covering façade work alongside an interior renovation of the ninth-and-tenth-floor duplex.
The capital question specific to this building is Landmarks. Every exterior element that matters here — the cast-iron storefront, the terra-cotta banding, the balustrade, the 1897 rooftop penthouse, the painted advertisement on the Ann Street wall — is regulated. Restoration of historic fabric is more expensive than replacement and slower to permit. A buyer should ask the managing agent for the current reserve position, any assessment history, the façade filing status, and whether any LPC permit or violation is open.
Real estate taxes — 421-g, and why it no longer applies
The building's residential conversion was carried out under 421-g, the Lower Manhattan office-to-residential program, and the listing record for the building has for years advertised that benefit. As of the current tax year it is gone, in both of its components.
The 421-g exemption appears on the Department of Finance rolls for the residential unit lots under exemption code 1925, with a benefit start of 2011 and a thirteen-year term. The exempt value declines across the fiscal 2021, 2022 and 2023 rolls and reaches zero on the fiscal 2024 roll.
The 421-g abatement is recorded separately in DOF's abatement detail for the same unit lots under program code 421G, with a benefit period running July 1, 2010 through June 30, 2025. It expired at the end of that period.
Both benefits have therefore run their course. Any listing, valuation or spreadsheet that still credits this building with a 421-g benefit is working from stale information, and the difference between an abated and an unabated monthly number on a 2,700-square-foot Financial District residence is not small. Underwrite the current bill on the specific unit.
Local Law 97
- 2024–2029 annual penalty
- $0 (under cap)
- 2030–2034 annual penalty
- $0 (under cap)
- Per unit / month range
- —
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).
Penalties shown are amounts DOB assessed against filings on record across 2005–10 to 2020–25. The FISP dataset does not record whether they were paid, contested or remain open, so treat the figure as history rather than a current balance and confirm the building’s standing with the managing agent.
Source: NYC DOB facade filings (FISP) · The Roebling Research Library. City record last verified September 2026.
Recent sales
Seven residences is a very thin same-building comparable set, and resale activity here is correspondingly sparse — a handful of recorded transfers since the 2015 sellout. Pricing has to be built from the outside in: full-floor loft condominiums in landmark conversions in the Fulton corridor, adjusted for the absence of staffing and amenities and for the now-unabated tax line.
The building's strengths in that comparison are scale and provenance — a full floor with two exposures, high vaulted ceilings and an intact 1893 landmark façade — and its constraints are the small building's economics and the Landmarks obligation on the exterior. Buyers who want a doorman, a gym and a package room are looking at a different building. Unit-level transaction history is maintained in The Roebling Research Library and shared with clients during diligence.
Recent closings 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.
| Date | Unit | Apartment | Price | PPSF | vs. Ask |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 12, 2024 | 7 | 3 BR · 3 BA · 2,708 sf | $2,620,000 | $968/sf | -2.9% |
| Feb 22, 2024 | 3FLLOFT | 3 BR · 3 BA · 2,728 sf | $2,900,000 | $1,063/sf | -3.2% |
| Feb 22, 2024 | 1 | 2,677 sf | $2,900,000 | $1,083/sf | off-mkt |
| Oct 19, 2022 | 6 | 2 BR · 3 BA · 2,708 sf | $2,840,000 | $1,049/sf | -5.2% |
| Oct 18, 2022 | 4 | 2 BR · 3 BA · 2,677 sf | $2,840,000 | $1,061/sf | off-mkt |
| Jul 7, 2022 | 5 | 3 BR · 3 BA · 2,708 sf | $3,125,000 | $1,154/sf | -3.8% |
| May 25, 2022 | 4 | 2 BR · 3 BA · 2,708 sf | $3,150,000 | $1,163/sf | -3.1% |
| May 21, 2019 | 8 | 3 BR · 3 BA · 2,656 sf | $3,150,000 | $1,186/sf | +0.0% |
Market read. Most recent trades (2024) cleared a median $1,063/sf across 3 sales. Median listing discount 3.1% 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 1-00091-7503) 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 from recorded condo declarations and offering plans.
What to know if you’re buying
Verify the tax bill yourself. 421-g is expired on both the exemption and the abatement side. Do not accept a marketing sheet that references it.
The exterior is regulated. Individual landmark designation means windows, storefront, signage and visible rooftop work require LPC review. Ask what is currently permitted, what is open, and what the condominium's façade plan looks like over the next five years.
Seven owners is a small denominator. One elevator modernization or one façade cycle lands hard. Read the budget, the reserve and the assessment history before contract.
Confirm the address in your title and lender file. The building answers to both 42 Ann Street and 127 Fulton Street. Mismatched addresses across a title report, an appraisal and a tax record slow closings.
Understand the two conversions. The residential conversion (2009–11) and the condominium creation (2014–15) were separate events under separate owners. Any construction warranty or sponsor obligation runs from the 2014–15 offering, not from the earlier work.
Walk the floor plate. Twenty-five feet wide and a hundred and eighteen feet deep is a specific kind of living. The vaulted ceilings carry the middle of the plan; see it in person before deciding whether it works for you.
What to know if you’re selling
Lead with the landmark, and document it. The LPC designation report is a public document that tells this building's story better than any listing copy could. Provide it.
Get ahead of the tax question. Buyers who discover the 421-g expiry in diligence will reprice. Buyers who are given the current bill up front, with a carrying-cost analysis attached, will not.
Price against full-floor landmark conversions, not against serviced condominiums. The comparable set is the Fulton corridor's loft conversions, adjusted for the amenity gap in both directions.
Prepare the Landmarks answer. Every serious buyer's attorney will ask what exterior work is pending and what it will cost. Have the condominium's position ready.
Comparable buildings
If you're considering 42 Ann Street, also evaluate:
- 130 Fulton Street — the Fulton Building, also De Lemos & Cordes and also 1891–93, directly across Fulton Street; the same architects and vintage in a 21-unit boutique loft condominium
- 111 Fulton Street — late Art Deco commercial building converted to loft-scale condominium residences; the larger Fulton-corridor alternative
- 119 Fulton Street (Fultonhaus) — 1919 building converted to condominium a few doors east; comparable boutique scale
- 150 Nassau Street — R. H. Robertson's 1894–95 early skyscraper, converted to condominium in 2002; the closest peer in vintage and architectural significance
- 71 Nassau Street — 1905 Beaux-Arts office building converted to condominium in the mid-2000s; similar conversion economics at larger scale
- 65 Nassau Street — circa-1898 loft building converted to residential cooperative use in 1980; the co-op alternative in the same corridor
- 80 John Street — Buchman & Kahn, 1926–27, condominium-converted in 2006; the full-service alternative two blocks south
- 99 John Street — 1933 building, rental conversion 1999 and condominium conversion 2007; the large-building comparison for amenities and staffing
- 5 Beekman Street — Temple Court, 1883, with a 2016 tower; the landmark-plus-new-construction alternative at a different price tier
- 176 Broadway — 1927 prewar cooperative; the co-op comparison for carrying cost and policy
The neighborhood
For the full corridor — architecture, schools, transit, and pricing across Financial District — read The Roebling Team Guide to Financial District.
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.
Considering a move at Keuffel & Esser Company Building?
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