441 West End Avenue
441 West End Avenue, New York, NY 10024
BBL 1012440072 · BIN 1080437
- Year built
- 1925
- Type
- Condominium
- Landmark
- Designated
Own an apartment here? See what it would sell for.
A Private Pricing Opinion — what your apartment at 441 West End Avenue 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.
441 West End Avenue is a 1925–26 Colonial Revival apartment house at the corner of West 81st Street, designed by the prolific George F. Pelham for the Marcus Brown Construction Co. Built under a separate permit but designed by the same architect for the same owner, it shares a continuous façade with its twin at 451 West End Avenue — together they form a single, dignified blockfront in the classical idiom that gives West End Avenue its remarkable architectural coherence. The avenue is among the most consistent residential corridors in Manhattan: a near-continuous wall of pre-war buildings, mostly 12 to 16 stories, built within a tight band of years and a shared vocabulary of masonry bases, brick bodies, and restrained classical detailing.
Pelham's design rewards a close look: a stone base, English-bond brickwork, two-story fluted-pilaster entrance surrounds with molded door enframements and bracketed double windows above, segmental-arched window groupings with paneled spandrels at the lower floors, and terra-cotta stringcourses and sills carrying up the elevation to a decorative cornice. It is a confident, well-mannered piece of 1920s West End Avenue design rather than a stripped utility building, and the historic district protects exactly this character.
Notably, 441 West End Avenue operates as a rental rather than a cooperative or condominium — a meaningful distinction on an avenue where the great majority of buildings converted to co-op ownership decades ago. For renters, that makes it a relatively scarce thing: a pre-war full-service building on a prime West End corner available by lease, with no shares to buy and no board package to assemble. The 81st Street location is among the best on the avenue — equidistant between Central Park and Riverside Park, steps from the American Museum of Natural History, and within easy reach of the neighborhood's retail and the 79th and 86th Street subway stations.
Architecture and unit composition
The 87 apartments reflect mid-1920s West End Avenue design — pre-war layouts with generous room proportions, organized in the gracious manner of the era. The building's roughly 2,500 gross square feet per unit points to a meaningful proportion of large, family-scaled apartments alongside more moderate formats, consistent with the spacious pre-war character of the avenue.
Pre-war signatures recur throughout: high ceilings, formal entry foyers on many lines, separated rooms, hardwood floors, and period detailing in varying states of preservation; some lines retain historic six-over-six wood sash. The corner siting at 81st Street gives favorable lines cross-exposure and good light, and upper-floor apartments capture open sky and partial avenue and river views toward the west.
The classical masonry composition — brick body over a substantial stone base, with measured terra-cotta ornament — is characteristic of West End Avenue's coherent pre-war streetwall, and the continuous Pelham façade with 451 reads as one of the more handsome blockfronts on the avenue.
Building operations
441 West End Avenue operates as a full-service pre-war rental building — full-time doorman coverage, elevator service, and laundry among its services — and a parking garage occupies part of the cellar of the connected 451 West End Avenue, a genuine convenience on the West Side. Because the building is a rental, day-to-day operation and leasing run through ownership and the managing agent rather than a cooperative board; there is no purchase application or board approval. Lease terms, rent, lease length, and pet policy run through management.
Recent activity
This is a rental building, so the relevant market is the leasing market rather than the sales market:
- Availability turns over on lease cycles rather than at the pace of co-op or condo resales; pre-war full-service West End rentals tend to lease steadily given their scarcity.
- Asking rents track unit size, floor, and exposure, with larger pre-war layouts and upper-floor apartments at the top of the building's range.
- Any recorded transfers tied to this parcel relate to the building as a whole (ownership) rather than to individual apartment sales.
If you are evaluating the Upper West Side more broadly, we can frame the rent-versus-buy decision against the avenue's deep cooperative inventory.
What to know if you're renting at 441 West End Avenue
This is a rental, not a co-op or condo. There is no purchase, no shares, and no board approval — leasing is the process, and that's rare for a pre-war building on this avenue.
Pre-war scale is the draw. High ceilings, generous proportions, and solid 1920s construction in a full-service envelope, with the Pelham Colonial Revival façade as the address.
The 81st Street corner is prime. Equidistant between Central Park and Riverside Park, steps from the Museum of Natural History, with strong transit and neighborhood retail.
On-site parking is available. A garage in the connected 451 West End building serves the address — uncommon on West End Avenue.
Upper and corner lines carry the light. Exposure improves with floor and corner position; west-facing upper floors catch open sky toward the river.
If you're weighing rent vs. buy
For tenants at 441 West End considering ownership, West End Avenue and the surrounding Upper West Side offer one of the deepest pre-war cooperative markets in Manhattan. A consultation can frame the economics — carrying costs, tax treatment, and equity over time — against your timeline and the specific co-op buildings worth evaluating nearby.
Facade safety — Local Law 11
The latest available filing classified the facade as SWARMP — Safe With A Repair and Maintenance Program: the engineer identified conditions requiring monitoring or repair before the next inspection cycle. The scope, timeline, and how the building funds the work are building-specific — we review the filings and board materials for you.
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 2025–30. 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.
Comparable buildings
If you're considering 441 West End Avenue, also evaluate these nearby West End Avenue / Upper West Side buildings:
- 470 West End Avenue — nearby pre-war West End building
- 440 West End Avenue — pre-war West End peer across the avenue
- 400 West End Avenue — pre-war West End peer
- 450 West End Avenue — nearby pre-war West End building
- 535 West End Avenue — pre-war West End peer
The neighborhood
For the full corridor — architecture, schools, transit, and pricing across West End Avenue — read The Roebling Team Guide to West End Avenue.
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.
Considering a move at 441 West End Avenue?
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