The Amalgamated Dwellings (504 Grand Street)
504 Grand Street, New York, NY 10002
Lower East Side
BBL 1003310001 · BIN 1004064
- Year built
- 1929
- Type
- Cooperative
- Units
- 237
- Floors
- 6
- Landmark
- No
- Amenities
- Interior courtyard garden with the original illuminated fountain and London plane trees, community room, fitness center, laundry rooms, bicycle storage, on-site management
- Financing
- Maximum 80 percent of purchase price per management-sourced records
504 Grand Street is where Cooperative Village begins. The Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America built it in 1929 as the first cooperative in Manhattan organized under the State Housing Law of 1926, the limited-dividend statute that let a sponsor build below-market housing in exchange for a capped return and a tax concession. Everything that followed on this stretch of Grand Street — Hillman in 1947, East River in the early 1950s, Seward Park at the end of that decade — followed from the fact that this building worked.
The architecture states the argument directly. Springsteen & Goldhammer, with Roland Wank as project architect, wrapped a full city block in six stories of brick around a courtyard of roughly seventy by a hundred and seventy-three feet, so that residents enter through a garden rather than off Grand Street and every room gets a window. The model was the Karl-Marx-Hof in Vienna, and the borrowing was deliberate. The building replaced the R. Hoe & Company printing-press works, which had occupied this block and those north of it since the late nineteenth century, and it went up in a district of tenements, machine shops and lumber yards. The New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects gave it a medal in 1930.
For a buyer, the history is not decoration. It is the reason the transfer fee looks the way it does. A limited-equity cooperative caps what a shareholder may sell for; when such a building privatizes, the corporation typically claims a large share of the first market sale of each apartment, because that first sale is where decades of suppressed equity is realized at once. That is exactly the structure here: twenty-five percent of the gross price on an apartment's first sale, and the greater of fifteen percent of net profit or five thousand dollars on every sale after it. The apartment's position in that sequence is worth more to a seller's net proceeds than almost any other fact about it.
The third thing worth understanding is the corporate boundary. Grand Street is routinely discussed as a single entity, and it is not one. Amalgamated Dwellings, Inc. owns lot 1 and nothing else. The Hillman buildings on the same tax block, and the East River and Seward Park developments to the west, are separate corporations with separate boards, separate financials and materially different rules. Policies quoted for one of them do not transfer.
Architecture and unit composition
The building is a single six-story perimeter structure occupying the whole block, not a group of towers. Its Art Deco vocabulary is worked in brick and cast stone: parabolic archways at the entrances, banded brick detailing, stucco spandrels and custom metalwork enclosing the courtyard. Interior corridors are windowed, which is rare at this vintage and unusual at any vintage in the neighborhood.
The apartments were designed for working families and read that way: high ceilings, generous eat-in kitchens separated from the bedrooms, windows in every room, and cross-ventilation that came from the block-wrapping plan rather than from a light shaft. PLUTO records 237 residential units and 240 total, with roughly 216,000 square feet of building area on a 60,175-square-foot lot and about 1,800 square feet of retail. Layouts run from studios through three-bedrooms, and combinations exist. Condition varies widely — this is a building where long-tenured shareholders and fully renovated apartments sit in the same line — and renovation scope is usually the largest single variable between two otherwise similar units.
Building operations
Day-to-day life here is organized around the courtyard. The garden with its original fountain is the building's front door, and the community room, fitness center, laundry rooms and bicycle storage sit off it. Management is on site.
Capital posture. ACRIS records a City of New York rehabilitation loan history running from 1978 through 1989 — three separate municipal mortgages and agreements, all satisfied in the autumn and winter of 2004. The cooperative then carried commercial bank debt through the 1990s and 2000s, refinancing in 1996, 2002, 2008 and 2013. The current position was placed on April 27, 2021: a $10 million underlying mortgage together with a $2 million credit line from a cooperative lender, with the prior lender's mortgage satisfied the following day and the new loan subsequently assigned into the secondary market. Against 237 apartments that is roughly forty-two thousand dollars of underlying debt per unit — moderate for a prewar cooperative of this size, and consistent with management-sourced descriptions of a substantial reserve fund. Confirm the current balance, the maturity date and any live assessment with the managing agent; those figures are not public.
Taxes and abatements. The lot pays an ordinary Class 2 real property tax bill. There is no PILOT, no shelter-rent computation and no building-wide exemption program in force. Department of Finance records show a small exemption — on the order of two to three percent of the lot's assessed value — which is the aggregate of individual shareholder exemptions rather than any benefit held by the corporation. The building did carry J-51 benefits, and more than once: grants initiated in 1980 and 1985 on qualifying alteration costs, a further series through the 1990s, and a final grant initiated in 2003 whose abatement ran through tax year 2014. All of them have burned off. A buyer underwriting this building should assume a full, unabated tax line inside maintenance.
Policy framework
Flip tax. Twenty-five percent of the sale price on an apartment's first sale; thereafter the greater of fifteen percent of net profit or $5,000, payable by the seller at closing, per management-sourced records. Verify the applicable tier in writing.
Financing. Capped at eighty percent of the purchase price.
Subletting. Permitted, with a monthly sublet fee equal to one hundred percent of maintenance in years one through five, one hundred twenty-five percent in years six through ten, and rising thereafter by thirty percent of maintenance a year until it caps at two hundred fifteen percent. A refundable move-out deposit applies, and subtenants file their own application.
Alterations. A tiered alteration fee applies by scope, from decorating through full combinations.
Board process. A full purchase application and interview. The board recesses in July and August, which can add two months to a summer contract.
Not published: minimum down payment beyond the financing cap, post-closing liquidity, pied-à-terre policy, treatment of trusts and limited liability companies, guarantors, co-purchasers, and pet rules. Obtain each in writing from the managing agent before you offer.
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
ACRIS records roughly 190 share transfers against this tax lot since the first open-market sale in June 2004 — a deep, continuous resale record for a 237-unit building, with transfers in every year since. Pricing is quoted per room rather than per square foot in this market, and the Grand Street cooperatives as a group trade at a meaningful discount to the rest of lower Manhattan for the space delivered. That discount is the reason buyers come here.
Two variables move price inside the building more than anything else. The first is renovation condition, because the spread between an original apartment and a completed one is wide. The second is the flip tax tier, which does not change what a buyer pays but changes what a seller keeps, and therefore changes what a seller can accept. A first-sale apartment and a second-sale apartment at the same asking price are two different transactions. Index any market statement here to the last complete year rather than to the partial current one. 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 | PPSF | vs. Ask |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 7, 2026 | H2425 | 4 BR · 2 BA | $2,000,000 | +11.1% | |
| Mar 11, 2026 | E52 | 1 BR · 1 BA · 750 sf | $575,000 | $767/sf | +0.0% |
| Jan 23, 2026 | G32 | 2 BR · 1 BA | $820,000 | -2.4% | |
| Jul 17, 2025 | C33 | 1 BR · 1 BA · 700 sf | $572,500 | $818/sf | -8.4% |
| Jul 9, 2025 | C13 | 1 BR · 1 BA | $539,000 | -1.8% | |
| Apr 28, 2025 | D51 | 1 BR · 1 BA · 600 sf | $600,000 | $1,000/sf | -2.4% |
| Feb 10, 2025 | A53 | 2 BR · 1 BA · 1,000 sf | $680,000 | $680/sf | -2.9% |
| Jan 17, 2025 | A4 | 1 BR · 1 BA · 634 sf | $425,000 | $670/sf | +1.4% |
Market read. Most recent trades (2026) cleared a median $767/sf across 1 sale. Median listing discount 1.6% 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.
Other recent transfers
| Date | Unit | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Oct 16, 2018 | C24 | $675,000 |
Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 1-00331-0001) 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; square footage on co-ops is not officially recorded, figures shown are approximate.
What to know if you’re buying
Confirm the apartment's flip-tax tier in writing. It determines the seller's floor, and therefore your negotiating room. A seller facing a twenty-five percent gross charge has far less flexibility than one facing fifteen percent of profit.
Assume a full tax line. The J-51 benefits are exhausted and there is no PILOT. Model maintenance on the current bill, not on a historical figure.
Read the sublet schedule before you plan around it. Subletting is permitted, but the fee escalator is designed to discourage holding an apartment as an investment. If your plan involves renting the apartment out in year six or later, run the arithmetic first.
Mind the summer recess. July and August contracts wait for September board meetings. Build that into your closing timeline.
Run the numbers with the real figures. Use the Co-op Board Qualification Calculator against the board's actual financing and liquidity requirements, obtained from the managing agent rather than from a listing.
What to know if you’re selling
Model the transfer fee first. On a first sale it is the single largest line in your closing statement, larger than every other cost combined. Know the number before you set an asking price, not after you have an offer.
Lead with the courtyard and the plan. Windowed hallways, windows in every room, eat-in kitchens and a private garden entrance are the things this building has that its price competition does not.
Prepare the documents early. Buyers and lenders reach the transfer fee, the sublet schedule and the financing cap during diligence. Having the current financial statements and the managing agent's written policy summary in hand at first showing shortens the deal.
Comparable buildings
If you're considering 504 Grand Street, also evaluate:
- 500 Grand Street — Hillman Housing on the same tax block; the closest like-for-like comparison in setting, with a different corporation and different rules
- 530 Grand Street — the larger Hillman address, same corporation as 500 Grand
- 572 Grand Street — Cooperative Village co-op a short walk east
- 409 Grand Street — Grand Street cooperative alternative at smaller scale
- 357 Grand Street — the western end of the Grand Street co-op belt
- 185 Grand Street — downtown comparison for buyers weighing neighborhood
- 38 Delancey Street — the park-front condominium alternative nearby
- 20 Clinton Street — Art Deco-scale condominium for buyers who want deed ownership in the same blocks
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.
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