50 Plaza Street East
50 Plaza Street East, Brooklyn, NY 11238
Prospect Heights, Brooklyn
BBL 3011700001 · BIN 3029312
- Year built
- 1925
- Type
- Cooperative
- Units
- 49
- Floors
- 12
- Landmark
- No
- Subletting
- By-laws/proprietary lease as filed (1983): shares may not be sold, the Proprietary Lease assigned, nor the apartment sublet without consent duly authorized by resolution of the Board of Directors or given in writing by a majority of Directors, or - if the Board fails or refuses to consent - by written consent or vote of shareholders owning a specified proportion of outstanding shares (the OCR of the file reviewed does not resolve the percentage, so none is stated on the page). Current board policy unverified.
Compiled by The Roebling Research Desk from the building’s offering plan, amendments, and related building documents (primary source dated 1983 plan as filed). Reported and subject to confirmation. Board policies can change by amendment — confirm at the offer stage.
Every apartment house on the Grand Army Plaza rim stands on ground the City once owned. The oval and the park were taken in the 1860s; the surplus land around them was released for sale under an act of the Legislature passed on April 23, 1870 and amended three years later, and the surveyor's map of those Prospect Park lands was filed with the Kings County Register in December 1881. The row houses on Sterling Place went up on those released lots in the 1880s. The apartment houses on Plaza Street East came forty years later. What makes this building's file interesting is that the chain of title still recites the 1870 act by name — the deed description reaches all the way back through the park's own boundary survey.
The building itself is a twelve-story corner. A 1946 survey bound into the offering plan describes it precisely: semi-attached brick, a party wall along part of the northerly line, stone and metal balconies projecting eighteen inches over the street, sill courses, window trim and a two-foot roof cornice, with the curb and rail encroaching on Plaza Street by as much as six feet three inches. Two things follow from that description. Balconies on a 1925 Brooklyn apartment house are not common and they are a genuine amenity. Balconies on a 1925 Brooklyn apartment house are also a Local Law 11 line item with a life of its own, and any buyer should ask when they were last rebuilt.
The apartments are large. About 84,500 square feet of building area across 49 apartments works out to roughly 1,700 gross square feet each — higher than any of the six-story stock on the parkway and higher than the postwar building on the same tax block. The share schedule tells the same story from the other side: 10,000 shares across 49 apartments, an average of just over 200 shares apiece, offered at $450 a share in 1983. Fewer, bigger apartments in a tall building on a small lot is the same formula that produced the twelve-story cooperative on Eastern Parkway, and it is the reason both buildings read as boutique despite their height.
The conversion is where this building separates itself from its neighbors, and the difference is not decorative. Almost every Brooklyn conversion of the period was a non-eviction plan, in which no tenant could be removed by reason of the conversion. This one was an eviction plan under Section 352-eeee — the cover page says so in capital letters, and it warns that non-purchasing tenants other than eligible senior citizens and eligible disabled persons could be evicted after statutory time periods. An eviction plan requires a higher purchase threshold to declare effective and delivers a building with far fewer protected tenancies at the other end. That is one explanation for the nineteen-month gap between the April 1983 offering and the November 1984 deed, and it is the reason this cooperative arrived at shareholder governance with an unusually clean occupancy profile.
One more disclosure in that plan deserves attention, because it is the kind of thing that almost never appears in a 1980s file this plainly. At the plan date the building's certificate of occupancy provided for 46 apartments — 45 families plus a janitor's apartment — and two physician's offices, while the plan was offering 49. The sponsor had applied in November 1982 for a new certificate covering 50 residential apartments and committed that if it did not arrive by closing, it would abandon the plan and return every deposit, or amend to sell only 46 units and offer rescission. The Department of Finance now records 49 residential units of 50 total, which suggests the application succeeded. It is still worth asking management to produce the current certificate of occupancy, because a building whose legal unit count was in play at conversion is a building where that document should be in the file.
Architecture and unit composition
Twelve stories on an 11,071-square-foot lot with about 104 feet of frontage and a building depth of roughly 90 feet, carrying about 83,800 square feet of residential area and a small non-residential component. The 1983 plan allocated 10,000 shares in blocks across 49 apartments, with the allocation set by size, space, location, amenities and desirability. At just over 200 shares per apartment on average, the building's share structure is one of the coarsest-grained on the plaza rim — which in practice means the difference between two apartments in this building tends to be larger than the difference between two apartments in a 100-unit cooperative.
The plans are 1925 Brooklyn at generous scale, with the balconies as the distinguishing feature on the plaza and Butler Place elevations. The building is semi-attached, so the party-wall condition on part of the northerly line matters for sound and for any alteration touching that wall. Four decades of shareholder ownership have produced combinations and reconfigurations, so the 1983 schedule is an imperfect map of the building today.
Because the property is outside every designated district, alterations here proceed through board approval and Department of Buildings permits alone. On a twelve-story building with balconies, cornices and stone projections, the absence of a Landmarks review layer meaningfully shortens the calendar on any envelope project — and it is one of the few places where an unlandmarked address is worth a specific number.
Building operations
The 1983 operating model was modest for a twelve-story building: three and a half employees including the superintendent, whose duties the plan itemizes down to maintaining the public areas and the sidewalk, replacing lighting equipment and carting garbage; an Otis elevator service contract; and a laundry concession with Dime Laundry Service paying the corporation a flat $900 a year while the corporation maintained, cleaned, painted and heated the room and supplied the water and gas. Selling and managing agency at conversion sat with Park West Realty Company at the sponsor's own address, a related-party arrangement the plan disclosed and which is historical only.
The cooperative's Department of Housing Preservation and Development registration names EBMG LLC as managing agent for the current cycle. Staffing, contracts and budget are board-made now and should be confirmed rather than inferred.
The capital list on a 1925 twelve-story masonry envelope with projecting balconies is specific: the Local Law 11 façade cycle, the balconies and their railings, the roof and cornice, the elevator, the heating plant and the risers. In a 49-apartment corporation each of those lands on a narrow share base. Request three years of financial statements, the reserve balance, the assessment history, the last two façade filings, the current certificate of occupancy, and — first — the terms of the underlying mortgage, because at this scale debt service is the largest single input to the maintenance charge.
Recent sales
The retrade record
Lines that have traded more than once in the public record — the building’s appreciation arc, apartment by apartment.
Recent transfers at this building, sourced from NYC Department of Finance records. Apartment-level detail (line, condition, asking-price context) verified upon consultation request.
| Date | Unit | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Oct 17, 2024 | 9A | $2,300,000 |
| Sep 9, 2024 | 6E | $620,000 |
| May 14, 2024 | 7C | $1,775,000 |
| Apr 23, 2024 | 6C | $1,728,000 |
| Mar 21, 2024 | 12C | $1,922,500 |
| Dec 18, 2023 | 12D | $1,437,000 |
Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 3-01170-0001) 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
Ask for the current certificate of occupancy. The building's legal unit count was an open question at conversion — 46 on the certificate against 49 offered — and the sponsor's undertaking to fix it is in the plan. Confirm where it landed.
Ask when the balconies were last rebuilt. Stone and metal balconies projecting over the street on a 1925 building are the single most predictable capital item here, and they run through the Local Law 11 cycle.
Get the underlying mortgage terms early. In a 49-apartment corporation this is the maintenance charge. Balance, rate and maturity, alongside three years of financials and the assessment history.
Understand what an eviction plan meant. It is a historical fact about how the building converted, not a live condition. Its practical legacy is a cooperative that came out of 1984 with very few protected tenancies.
Confirm the party-wall condition if the apartment adjoins it. The building is semi-attached along part of its northerly line. That matters for sound and for any alteration touching that wall.
What to know if you’re selling
Lead with the square footage and the balcony. Roughly 1,700 gross square feet per apartment on public data, in a twelve-story building on the Grand Army Plaza arc, with projecting stone and metal balconies. Those are three facts and they are all checkable.
Photograph the outlook from the actual floor. At twelve stories the upper lines clear the canopy and open toward the plaza and the park. That is the listing; a lower-floor apartment needs a different one.
Explain the no-Landmarks position. The 2009 Prospect Heights district and the Park Slope district both stop short of this block. Window replacement, ironwork and façade work here do not go through the Landmarks Preservation Commission, and buyers coming from the district blocks price that once it is explained.
Assemble the board package before the first offer. Financials, reserve balance, assessment history, house rules, sublet policy, flip tax, the current certificate of occupancy and the façade and balcony history.
Comparable buildings
If you're considering 50 Plaza Street East, also evaluate:
- 34 Plaza Street East — the 1956 twelve-story cooperative on the same tax block; the closest direct comparison
- 20 Plaza Street East — the 1940 six-story cooperative holding the curve of the plaza
- 10 Plaza Street East — the 1959 fifteen-story cooperative on the next block
- 41 Eastern Parkway — the parkway's twelve-story prewar co-op, with the largest apartments on that blockfront
- 39 Plaza Street West — the Rosario Candela cooperative on the western arc; the plaza's prewar benchmark
- 135 Eastern Parkway (Turner Towers) — the neighborhood's largest prewar cooperative
- 125 Eastern Parkway (The Theodore Roosevelt) — 1923 six-story parkway co-op; the low-rise comparison
- 230 Park Place — the Art Deco elevator co-op inside the Prospect Heights Historic District
- 44 Butler Place (Butler Plaza) — the prewar condominium around the corner, for buyers weighing tenure
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.
Considering a move at 50 Plaza Street East?
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 50 Plaza Street East 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.