42 Wooster Street (The Wooster Street Condominium)

42–44 Wooster Street is the 1882–1883 building, designed by Jarvis Morgan Slade with A. G. Bogert & Son as builder for Edward Tailer, and built as stores. 46–50 Wooster Street is the 1894–1895 building by F. S. Baldwin, built for William Purdy as store and lofts and classified by Landmarks as Romanesque. Both are recorded by LPC with brick as the primary material, though the block reads as cast iron and the buildings are commonly described that way; the storefront-level ironwork is the source of the impression. The southern building presents a red-brick elevation over a two-story base with heavy columns, and stone window heads that carry across the façade.

The height question is genuinely unsettled in the public record. PLUTO carries six floors for the lot; DOB filings carry eight stories; the recorded unit schedule reaches a seventh floor. All three can be partly right, because the two buildings differ in height and both received set-back penthouse additions in the 1990s restoration. Treat any single floor count in a data feed as unreliable here and read the certificate of occupancy for the specific unit.

Residences run large. Published descriptions record full-floor apartments in the 4,500-to-5,000-square-foot range with eleven- to thirteen-foot ceilings, arched windows, exposed brick, and private terraces; the duplex penthouse carries roughly 5,000 square feet of interior space and about 2,500 square feet of outdoor space. Front-and-rear units in the northern building are smaller but still loft-scale. The atrium cut down through the northern building in the conversion, with a fifth-floor terrace and a sixth-floor walkway around it, is the design gesture that distinguishes that half of the condominium.

Operations are deliberately light for a building of this value: private key-locked elevator landings rather than a staffed lobby, a full-time superintendent, a mail room, central air conditioning and in-unit laundry. There is no doorman and no amenity program, and none is claimed.

For fifteen unit lots carrying nearly 70,000 square feet across two nineteenth-century structures inside a historic district, the operating profile that matters is capital, not service. Landmarks jurisdiction means façade, window and rooftop work proceeds on the Commission's timetable and to its standards, which raises both the cost and the lead time of any exterior project. Two buildings mean two roofs, two façade cycles and, historically, two sets of structural questions. The building has carried repeated façade restoration, masonry reconstruction and scaffolding filings over the past two decades, which is normal for the type but should be read as a capital-intensity signal rather than ignored.

Before contract, ask for the current operating budget, the reserve position, the Local Law 11 façade cycle status and any open Landmarks items, the elevator modernization history, and the assessment record. Ask also for the current certificate of occupancy, given the building's long run on temporary certificates through 2016.

Ownership form: Condominium. Transfers clear through a board right of first refusal rather than a cooperative approval, which produces the faster and more predictable closing timeline typical of the form.

Pied-à-terre, subletting, LLC, trust and foreign purchasers: Confirm in the current declaration, bylaws and house rules; condominium form alone does not establish them. Any minimum lease term or rental cap should be confirmed with the managing agent.

Pets and house rules: Not documented in public records.

Occupancy classification — joint living-work quarters. The residential use here was authorized as joint living-work quarters through the Landmarks Commission's 74-711 application, under manufacturing zoning that permitted residential occupancy in SoHo only in that form. The December 2021 SoHo/NoHo rezoning replaced M1-5B with M1-5/R7X inside the Special SoHo-NoHo Mixed Use District and made conventional residential use available going forward — but a rezoning does not amend an existing certificate of occupancy, and DOB filings for this building continued to carry M1-5B as late as 2017. Read the current certificate of occupancy for the specific unit before contract, and have counsel confirm whether any artist-certification condition attaches. This is the single most commonly misunderstood point in SoHo loft transactions of this vintage.

Real estate taxes: No building-wide exemption of any kind, and no J-51 history for this lot. Underwrite full unabated taxes on the specific unit against the current bill, then apply the co-op/condo abatement only if the buyer will occupy the unit as a primary residence.

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 (2024) cleared a median $2,212/sf (recorded) across 1 sale. Median listing discount 0.0% from the last ask.

Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 1-00475-7505; 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.

The actress Claire Danes bought a fourth-floor residence from the sponsor in March 1998 and sold it in November 2012, as reported by the Hollywood Reporter and other press. No current resident is named here.

This is two buildings. 42–44 Wooster (1883) and 46–50 Wooster (1895) are separate structures under one condominium, with separate access, different heights and separate building envelopes. Understand which one your unit is in, because the roof, façade and elevator questions differ.

Do not trust the city's year built or floor count. PLUTO's 1880 matches neither building. Its six-floor figure conflicts with the DOB's eight and with a unit schedule that reaches the seventh floor. Use the Landmarks record and the certificate of occupancy.

Read the certificate of occupancy on joint living-work quarters. The conversion was approved under manufacturing zoning through a landmarks special permit for joint living-work quarters. The 2021 rezoning changed the forward rules; it did not rewrite the existing document.

Underwrite full taxes. There is no J-51, no 421-a, and no building exemption of any kind. The co-op/condo abatement is available only to primary-residence owners.

Price the interior separately from the building. Units were delivered raw in 1998. Two apartments on the same line can be a decade and several million dollars apart in condition. Budget the difference explicitly rather than trusting a building average.

Landmarks jurisdiction is real. Any exterior alteration — windows, terrace work, rooftop equipment — requires a Landmarks permit. Price the schedule, not just the work.

Lead with the plate and the outdoor space. Full-floor and near-full-floor SoHo lofts with private terraces and wood-burning fireplaces are a small and shrinking set. That is the argument.

Tell the 1994 story. The rescue of 46 Wooster and the Landmarks Commission's own 74-711 application are documented in The New York Times and give the building a provenance most SoHo conversions cannot claim.

Get ahead of the paperwork. Buyers' counsel will ask about the joint living-work classification and the temporary-certificate history. Having the current certificate of occupancy and a clear answer assembled before offers prevents a mid-diligence stall.

Comparables have to be chosen carefully. Because units were sold raw, the building's own transaction history spans an enormous condition range. Line-specific, building-specific and condition-adjusted analysis beats any per-foot average.

If you're considering 42 Wooster Street, also evaluate:

• 43 Wooster Street — the ten-residence loft condominium directly across the street on the same block; the closest peer by location, at half the plate
• 47 Greene Street — loft condominium on the same tax block; smaller and differently configured
• 477 Broome Street — twenty-residence loft condominium on the same block; the larger-denominator alternative
• 33 Greene Street — cooperative loft conversion on the same block; the co-op comparison point in SoHo
• 102 Wooster Street — SoHo loft condominium a few blocks north; comparable scale and vintage of conversion
• 105 Wooster Street — boutique SoHo loft building on the same street
• 139 Wooster Street — SoHo loft conversion with full-floor residences
• 160 Wooster Street — the larger, more serviced SoHo condominium alternative
• 70 Greene Street — cast-iron Greene Street loft conversion; the classic iron-front comparison
• 25 Bond Street — the contemporary NoHo alternative at similar unit size and price tier