515 East 85th Street
515 East 85th Street, between York and East End Avenues, in Yorkville, Manhattan
Yorkville, Upper East Side
BBL 1015820005 · BIN 1051237
- Year built
- 1962
- Type
- Cooperative
- Floors
- 13
- Landmark
- No
- Amenities
- 24-hour doorman, resident superintendent, two elevators, common laundry, bicycle room, storage and garage
- Financing
- Up to 75%, with a minimum 25% down payment — confirm with the managing agent.
Every recorded sale at this building, 2003–2026
Bedroom-by-bedroom medians, the full transfer record, and how units trade against ask.
- 1BR median
- $525K
- Recent range
- $439K – $2.2M
- Listing discount
- 2.5%
- Recorded transfers
- 95
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A Private Pricing Opinion — what your apartment at 515 East 85th 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.
515 East 85th Street is a 13-story red-brick cooperative on the block between York and East End Avenues. The building combines round-the-clock door coverage with proximity to Carl Schurz Park. Its apartment inventory includes compact studios, larger multi-bedroom homes and penthouses with substantial wraparound terraces.
The range of layouts is unusually important to its market identity. A buyer seeking a smaller apartment with full-time service encounters the same building as a buyer considering an enlarged combination. The larger homes have sometimes joined adjacent apartments, producing layouts that differ considerably from the original repeated plans.
The east-of-York location places the park and East River esplanade close to the entrance. The Second Avenue subway is farther west, and crosstown and north-south buses are relevant parts of the location's transit access. At the top of the building, selected terrace homes have river outlooks in addition to their outdoor space.
Architecture and unit composition
The postwar structure is organized around two elevators, with a brick exterior and upper-level outdoor areas. The original stock includes alcove studios, one-bedroom apartments and larger homes. Some smaller layouts have separate dressing areas, keeping storage and circulation apart from the principal living room.
One-bedroom apartments commonly combine an entrance foyer with a separate kitchen and living area. Larger two-bedroom layouts add a second bathroom in parts of the inventory. Combinations have created substantially larger residences with multiple former apartment footprints.
The penthouses include one-bedroom configurations with wraparound terraces. Published coverage has described an outdoor area of roughly 450 square feet on one such home, with several exposures. This is a building where the penthouse designation does not automatically mean the largest interior.
Terrace doors connect directly to the living areas in these upper homes. Some have northern and eastern outlooks toward the river, while others take in several directions over the adjoining blocks. The terrace configuration and internal room count need to be considered together when comparing the upper-floor inventory.
Building operations
The co-op has a 24-hour doorman and resident superintendent. Common laundry, bicycle storage and a storage room supplement the in-apartment space. The building also has a garage, with parking subject to availability and a waiting list.
Real estate taxes are paid through the cooperative's operating structure. The property is Class 2, with no statutory annual assessment-growth cap and no building-wide abatement. Those tax expenses sit alongside the staffing and service costs of a fully attended entrance.
The current R8B zoning allowance is well below the property's recorded built FAR. The existing apartment house therefore contains substantially more floor area than the stated residential allowance in the zoning entry. That gap describes an established postwar building within a lower-density contextual district, not a new development entitlement.
Recent sales
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jun 16, 2026 | 8C | 2 BR · 2 BA | $865,000 | -3.8% | |
| Feb 25, 2026 | 11C | 2 BR · 2 BA | $1,575,000 | -0.9% | |
| Nov 7, 2025 | 6A | 1 BR · 1 BA | $525,000 | -0.9% | |
| Oct 9, 2025 | 4A | 1 BR · 1 BA | $525,000 | -3.7% | |
| Jun 30, 2025 | 9A | 1 BR · 1 BA | $495,000 | -10.0% | |
| Dec 4, 2024 | 12CD | 4 BR · 3.5 BA · 2,500 sf | $2,165,000 | $866/sf | -1.4% |
| Oct 11, 2024 | PHA | 1 BR · 1 BA | $807,000 | -3.4% | |
| May 29, 2024 | 6B | 1 BR · 1 BA | $439,000 | +0.0% |
Market read. $/sf is measured on the latest sales with reliable square footage (2024): a median $645/sf across 1 sale. The building has traded as recently as 2026. Median listing discount 1.5% 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Dec 9, 2009 | 4A | $375,000 |
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 1-01582-0005) 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.
At the recent median sale of $807K (7 transfers since 2024), a buyer putting 25% down would pay about $11,576 to close, or 1.4% of the price.
- Mansion tax: $0
- No mortgage recording tax or title insurance on a co-op purchase
- Attorneys, lender, building fees and filings: $11,576
Assumes a resale (the seller pays transfer taxes), a $4,500 attorney fee and a mortgage on the rest.
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Comparable buildings
- 510 East 86th Street: a nearby postwar cooperative for comparing a taller building's exposures with this side-street address.
- 446 East 86th Street: a similarly scaled postwar cooperative, useful for comparing layout mix and the position relative to York Avenue.
- Claiborne House: another mid-rise postwar cooperative in the same Yorkville area.
- The Mansion House: a comparable East End-area cooperative with a similar building height and residential scale.
- 525 East 86th Street: a larger nearby cooperative for weighing tower height and upper-floor exposure against the smaller association here.
More Upper East Side buildings
- 510 East 86th Street — 1958 co-op
- 515 East 72nd Street — 1985 condominium
- 515 East 79th Street (Asten House) — 1981 co-op by Philip Birnbaum & Associates
- 516 East 82nd Street — 1920 co-op
- 517 East 86th Street — 1939 co-op
- 517 East 87th Street — 1925 co-op
The neighborhood
For the full corridor — architecture, transit, and pricing across Upper East Side — read The Roebling Team Guide to Upper East Side.
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.
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