- Year built
- 1856
- Type
- Cooperative
- Units
- 2024
- Floors
- 4
- Landmark
- No
- Pets
- Permitted only with the corporation's express written consent. A board resolution amends House Rule 14 to cap pets at two dogs and two cats per apartment, with pets living in an apartment before March 1, 2004 grandfathered
- Flip tax
- A flip tax exists; the rate is not stated in the documents on file. The corporation's statement of income carries a dedicated *Flip taxes* revenue line, which reported zero in both 2015 and 2016 — the years in which no shares changed hands. Get the current rate and who pays it in writing from the managing agent before you sign a contract
Every recorded sale at this building, 2006–2025
Bedroom-by-bedroom medians, the full transfer record, and how units trade against ask.
- Listing discount
- 6.8%
- Recorded transfers
- 9
This is a five-apartment cooperative inside a single 1856 brownstone. That sentence contains almost everything a buyer needs to understand about how it behaves.
Max Schwerin built Nos. 450 and 452 together in 1856, on lots he had bought from Clement Clarke Moore as the last block of the Chelsea estate opened for development. The houses on this stretch went up between 1854 and 1857 in the Italianate and Anglo-Italianate manner, four stories over basements raised more than half above grade, and this pair was sold as soon as it was finished — Schwerin was a shirt merchant and a speculator, not an occupant. Landmarks has no architect for the building. It is a builder's house, and none the worse for it.
The most consequential thing that ever happened to the façade was not a fire or a conversion but a street plan. In 1928–29 the City ordered every stoop on this side of West 23rd Street removed to widen the roadway. The widening was never carried out. At No. 450 the stoop took the parlor-floor entrance and its brownstone enframement with it — a third floor-length window now sits where the door was — and the deep rustication of the basement was filled in at the same time. The Italianate bracketed cornice with paired brackets and oblong panels is original, minus the rounded tabs at the bracket bottoms, and 452 next door retains what 450 lost. The designation report is unusually direct about the comparison. It matters to a seller, because the house across the party wall is the control.
The cooperative dates from August 1981, when 23rd Associates conveyed the building to a tenants' corporation, and it converted with J-51 in hand — an abatement beginning in fiscal 1981 and an exemption beginning in fiscal 1982, both twelve-year benefits against a certified alteration cost of a little over $111,000. Those numbers are small because the job was small: five apartments in one house. The benefit burned off in fiscal 1993 and nothing has replaced it, so real estate taxes now run at full assessment and are the largest single line in the budget by a wide margin.
The financial posture is exactly what five apartments produce. Total maintenance for the entire building is under $130,000 a year. Total expenses before depreciation are about $115,000, and roughly $63,000 of that is real estate taxes. There is an underlying mortgage, but it is modest — under half a million dollars on the 2016 balance sheet, refinanced in 2022 with National Cooperative Bank on a $600,000 consolidated facility. There is about $300,000 of cash. There is no reserve study, and the accountant says so in the report. Five shareholders absorb the cost of a roof, a boiler, a Landmarks-compliant window replacement or a façade repair, and one apartment sale moves the corporation's revenue more than a full year of ordinary operations.
What is happening right now is worth knowing before you look. In February 2025 the corporation pulled a permit to combine the two lower duplexes — Unit A, running from the cellar to the first floor, and Unit B, running from the first to the second — into a single triplex. That takes the legal dwelling-unit count from five to four. A four-unit building is a different animal from a five-unit one: fewer shareholders across the same fixed costs, an even thinner resale market, and a governance structure in which no vote is ever anonymous.
Architecture and unit composition
Twenty-four feet of frontage, a 51-foot-deep building on a 98.75-foot lot, about 7,244 gross square feet, roughly 50 feet to the roof. Brownstone, Italianate, flat lintels with heavy moulded drip-caps, segmental-arched openings at the upper floors, and a cornice that is the house's best surviving feature. The parlor-floor windows were originally casements opening onto cast-iron balconies; the band course beneath them still marks where the balconies were.
Five apartments in a 7,244-square-foot house means an average of roughly 1,400 gross square feet apiece, and the apartments are not stacked flats. The alteration record describes duplexes and triplexes: a triplex on the fourth and fifth floors and the attic, a cellar-to-first-floor duplex, a first-to-second-floor duplex. Recorded share transfers show both letter designations (A, B, C, D) and older numeric ones (1, 1A, 5), which is the ordinary signature of a small building that has recombined units more than once. The 2025 combination is the latest instance.
The built floor area ratio is 3.06 against a residential maximum of 3.00 in the R7B district — the house is very slightly over today's envelope and continues as a legal non-conforming bulk. There is no development right to sell here and no realistic way to add floor area, which is the correct answer for a landmarked row house in any event.
Building operations
A walk-up with no elevator device on file and no doorman. The financial statements carry janitorial services, utilities, water and sewer, insurance, professional fees and real estate taxes — and no management fee, which together with a purchase package addressed to the corporation itself points to a self-administered building. Utilities at the building level are a small number, which suggests apartments are separately metered for most of what they consume; confirm heat, hot water and metering arrangements during diligence.
The house rules on file are the standard form appended to the proprietary lease, and a reader should treat them accordingly: they refer to elevators, a lobby, a garage and doctors' offices, none of which this building has. What is specific and enforceable is the pet resolution — written consent required, two dogs and two cats maximum, pre-March 2004 pets grandfathered — the weekday 8:30-to-5:00 construction window, the 11:00 p.m. quiet hour and the 80 percent floor-covering rule. Exterior work of any kind requires a Landmarks permit before a Department of Buildings permit, and that sequence should be built into any renovation timetable.
Policy framework
The published stack is thin, and we will not invent the rest.
Documented: the pet cap, the renovation hours, the $250 application fee, the five-copy package, three personal references, a landlord reference, three years of returns and four months of statements, the consumer-report authorization, and the signed acknowledgement of the lease, by-laws and house rules.
Documented only in outline: the flip tax. The corporation's income statement carries a Flip taxes line, so one exists. The rate, the base and who pays it are not stated in anything on file. Ask.
Not published at all: the financing ceiling, the minimum down payment, post-closing liquidity, sublet seasoning and fees, and pied-à-terre policy. Every one of these is a board resolution in a five-shareholder building, which means it can be both firm and unwritten. Get it in writing before you offer.
Observed in the record rather than in the rules: trusts have been accepted here — one apartment moved into a shareholder's revocable trust in 2015 and another was purchased in the name of a family trust in 2023. No LLC or corporate purchase appears on this lot. Do not read either fact as a policy; read them as a reason to raise the question early.
Local Law 97
This building is below the 25,000 sq ft threshold at which LL97 emissions caps apply. No regulatory capital pressure from this law specifically, current or 2030.
See full Local Law 97 analysis →Recent sales
Five apartments, soon four, in a landmarked row house means a resale might appear once every few years. Pricing is set by the specific home far more than by any building-level average: which floors, whether the apartment is a duplex or a triplex, whether it reaches the garden or the roof, and how recently it was renovated. The competitive set is the other small row-house cooperatives and row-house condominium conversions inside the Chelsea historic districts, plus the handful of boutique conversions on West 22nd and West 23rd. It is not the elevator buildings on Ninth Avenue, and buyers who require a doorman or an elevator screen this building out in the first ten minutes — which narrows the pool and concentrates it.
Two building-level facts belong in every pricing conversation because a well-advised buyer's attorney will find them: real estate taxes run at full assessment with no abatement and consume most of the operating budget, and the financial statements are compilations with no reserve study behind them. Neither is disqualifying. Both are answerable. Unit-level transaction history is maintained in The Roebling Research Library and shared with clients during diligence.
Recent transfers 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 | vs. Ask |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Feb 6, 2025 | D | 3 BR · 2.5 BA | $2,900,000 | +3.8% |
| Mar 20, 2023 | A | 3 BR · 3.5 BA | $5,100,000 | +2.0% |
| Aug 26, 2021 | C | 2 BR · 2 BA | $2,450,000 | +0.0% |
| Feb 5, 2014 | 5E | 2 BR | $1,677,500 | -6.8% |
| Oct 23, 2013 | B | 2 BR | $2,150,000 | -14.0% |
| Oct 13, 2009 | 1A | 2 BR | $1,375,000 | -5.2% |
| Jun 26, 2006 | 5E | 2 BR | $999,400 | -9.1% |
Market read. Median listing discount 5.2% 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 1-00720-0072) 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.
What to know if you’re buying
Read the financials as a compilation, not an audit. Management's numbers, unverified, with substantially all disclosures omitted and no reserve study. Ask the board directly what capital work is contemplated over the next five years, what the last assessments were for, and how the roof, boiler and façade are being tracked.
Underwrite the taxes, not the maintenance. Roughly 55 percent of operating expenses in the most recent year on file are real estate taxes, with no abatement and no J-51 left. Assessment increases pass straight through. Compare the true carrying cost against a leveraged, abated building using the True Monthly Carrying Cost Calculator rather than comparing headline maintenance.
Ask about the combination. The permit to merge Units A and B was issued in February 2025 and the building will be four apartments when it signs off. Find out where that work stands, what it did to share allocations and maintenance, and whether any assessment attached to it.
Expect a real board process and no agent to hide behind. Five collated copies, a $250 fee, a background check, three personal references and an acknowledgement that you have read the lease. Prepare with the Co-op Board Qualification Calculator, and get the financing ceiling and post-closing liquidity requirement in writing before you spend money on an application.
Price the Landmarks constraint into any renovation. Windows, ironwork, the entrance and anything visible from the street require a permit in the Chelsea Historic District Extension. Budget the time as well as the money.
What to know if you’re selling
Scarcity is the argument. A duplex or triplex in an 1856 landmarked Chelsea row house, in a building with four or five apartments and no institutional overhead, comes to market a few times a decade. Market against the specific alternative — the district's other small cooperatives and row-house condominiums — not against Chelsea generally.
Put the balance sheet in front of buyers' counsel early. A small underlying mortgage, positive operating results and roughly $300,000 of cash answer most of what a buyer's attorney will ask about a five-unit self-administered cooperative. Answering before you are asked keeps a deal moving.
Confirm the flip tax before you calculate net proceeds. The corporation charges one; the rate is not in the documents on file. Get it from the board, then run the whole picture through the Seller Closing Cost Calculator.
Screen for ownership structure early. Trusts have closed here; no entity purchase has. If your buyer needs an LLC, find out whether the board will entertain it before you are in contract.
Comparable buildings
If you're considering 450 West 23rd Street, also evaluate:
- 429 West 22nd Street — Anderson House, an eight-apartment 1855 row-house cooperative on the same tax block, and the closest like-for-like in the district
- 468 West 23rd Street — Chelsea Gardens, the condominium alternative in an 1857 house a few doors west
- 458 West 20th Street — landmarked row-house cooperative, circa 1845, for buyers who want the oldest fabric in the district
- 333 West 22nd Street — sixteen-residence Greek Revival-era cooperative, a step up in scale with the same character
- 445 West 20th Street — historic row-house condominium conversion inside the same landmarked fabric
- 228 West 21st Street — nine-apartment prewar cooperative of floor-through homes, one block south
- 360 West 22nd Street (London Towne House) — the full-service elevator cooperative comparison for buyers weighing services against character
- 410 West 23rd Street (London Terrace Towers) — the large full-amenity cooperative on the same street
- 344 West 23rd Street (The Cheyney) — boutique condominium alternative nearby
- 365 West 20th Street (Chelsea Court Tower) — prewar elevator cooperative inside the historic district
The neighborhood
For the full corridor — architecture, schools, transit, and pricing across Chelsea — read The Roebling Team Guide to Chelsea.
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.
Considering a move at 450 West 23rd Street?
Request a private building brief with the relevant comparable sales, current and off-market availability, and an apartment-specific view of value.
Own an apartment here? See what it would sell for.
A Private Pricing Opinion — what your apartment at 450 West 23rd 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.