52 East 4th Street (52E4)
52 East 4th Street, New York, NY 10003
East Village
BBL 1004597502 · BIN 1006566
- Year built
- 2007
- Type
- Condominium
- Units
- 14
- Floors
- 15
- Landmark
- No
Every recorded sale at this building, 2009–2026
Price-per-square-foot over time, the line- and floor-premium curves, and every recorded sale.
- Median $/sf
- $1,654
- Listing discount
- 2.6%
- Recorded sales
- 37
- On record
- 2009–2026
The lot is the whole argument. 52 East 4th Street sits one building west of the East Village / Lower East Side Historic District boundary. Everything from 54 East 4th Street eastward — the row of Federal and Greek Revival houses that gives this blockfront its character, plus the Bowery corner beyond — is inside the district and cannot be demolished or materially altered without Landmarks review. This lot is not. That is why a 210-foot, fifteen-story glass tower exists here and nowhere else on the block, and it is the first thing a buyer should understand about the building's permanence and its neighbors' impermanence.
The second thing is that 52E4 is a fourteen-residence building on top of three commercial floors, not a residential building with a store at the base. More than a third of the gross floor area is commercial — roughly 7,550 square feet of office, 2,264 square feet of retail, and a small garage. Two of the three commercial units are held by a not-for-profit religious organization that carries a full property-tax exemption on them in DOF records. That structure has consequences: the residential unit owners share a building with substantial institutional and retail use, common-charge allocation runs across a heterogeneous set of interests, and the commercial units' tax position is entirely separate from the residences'.
The third is the architecture. The building was designed by Robert Scarano Jr., an architect who worked at unusual volume through the mid-2000s boom and whose relationship with the Department of Buildings ended badly. DOB barred him from filing building documents after an administrative hearing found he had made false and misleading statements about three Brooklyn projects; the New York State Court of Appeals declined to hear his appeal in October 2011, making the bar permanent. In December 2011 the New York State Attorney General issued specific disclosure requirements for offering plans involving him. None of that is an allegation about this building — DOB signed the new-building application off in February 2010, and the certificate history since then is ordinary — but it is the reason a diligent buyer here should read the construction and sign-off record rather than assume it. That record is public, and it is clean on its face.
What the design actually produced is unusual and worth seeing in person. The exposed diagonal trusses that carry the elevation also cross the interiors, so no two floors read identically, and the ceiling heights and full-height glass give the residences a loft proportion that the building's small footprint would not otherwise support. The rooftop pool and cabana deck are the amenity most buyers respond to, and in a fourteen-unit building the ratio of that amenity to the number of households sharing it is unusually generous for downtown.
Architecture and unit composition
The parcel is irregular. PLUTO records 5,793 square feet of lot area on a 43.59-foot East 4th Street frontage — the difference is the leg that runs through to the Bowery, which is why 351 and 353 Bowery resolve to this building in the city's address directory. Zoning is split, C6-1 over R8B, and the building is constructed to a 4.62 FAR against a 3.44 residential and 6.00 commercial allowance — the commercial floors are what made the height possible.
Residential floors begin at four. Floors four and five are divided north and south, producing four smaller residences; floors six through twelve are single-residence plates; PH1, PH2 and PH3 occupy the top. The recorded unit schedule in ACRIS runs 1101 (4S) through 1114 (PH3) for the residences, 1115 through 1117 for the commercial units, and 1118 through 1121 for the four parking units. Parking is a separately owned condominium interest here, not a licence — a real distinction when a resale involves a space.
Interiors run to floor-to-ceiling glass, exposed beams and roughly 13-foot ceilings, with open kitchens finished in the mid-2000s downtown idiom. Several residences carry terraces. Because the plan is asymmetrical by design, floor-plate area and outdoor space vary meaningfully between lines, and building-average pricing is a poor guide to any specific unit.
Building operations
52E4 runs as a small, part-staffed condominium: part-time doorman coverage, a building superintendent, video security, bicycle storage and the indoor garage. The pool deck is the operating centerpiece and the largest single seasonal expense line in a building of this size. Fourteen residences is a thin denominator for a serviced roof amenity and a garage, and prospective buyers should read the operating budget and the reserve position rather than the amenity list.
The building has now passed its fifteenth year of occupancy, which is the window in which a downtown glass-and-metal building of this vintage typically faces its first significant façade and roof cycle. Ask for the current Local Law 11 façade filing status, the roof and pool-deck waterproofing history, and any assessment history or open capital plan.
Policy framework
Ownership form: Condominium. Transfers close through a board right of first refusal rather than a cooperative approval, which produces predictable 30-to-45-day timelines.
Pied-à-terre, subletting, LLC, trust and foreign ownership: Permitted under the standard condominium framework. Minimum lease terms and any registration requirement should be confirmed with the managing agent.
Pets and flip tax: Not documented in public records. Confirm both with the managing agent before pricing an offer or a sale.
Real estate taxes: The 421-a benefit is gone. DOF records show a ten-year, no-cap 421-a on the residential unit lots commencing in the 2011 tax year, phasing down across the decade and terminating at the end of its ten-year run. Residences are taxed at full assessment today. Any carrying-cost model built from a pre-2021 tax bill will be materially wrong; underwrite the current bill on the specific unit.
Commercial and institutional interests: Two of the three commercial units are tax-exempt in DOF records under a house-of-worship exemption. Understand how the condominium's common charges and any assessments are allocated between the residential and commercial sections before contract.
Local Law 97
- 2024–2029 annual penalty
- $41,479/yr
- 2030–2034 annual penalty
- $66,306/yr
- Per unit / month range
- $247 – $395
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 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 2015–20 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
52E4 sold out from the sponsor between mid-2009 and 2010 — a launch that ran directly into the worst of the downturn — and has traded steadily on resale since. Deeds have been recorded across essentially every residential line, with full-floor and penthouse units transacting most often.
On a per-square-foot basis the building prices with downtown boutique new-development inventory rather than with the prewar co-op and loft stock that surrounds it. Three factors drive the spread within the building: floor plate (the split fourth and fifth floors are a different product from the full-floor stack), private outdoor space, and whether a parking unit conveys. The absence of any tax abatement is now a neutral fact rather than a negative one — every unit is on the same full-tax footing, which makes intra-building comparison cleaner here than in buildings still stepping through a phase-out. Unit-level transaction history is maintained in The Roebling Research Library and shared with clients during diligence.
Recent closings 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 13, 2026 | 4N | 1 BR · 1 BA · 680 sf | $1,125,000 | $1,654/sf | -13.1% |
| Nov 17, 2025 | 11 | 2 BR · 2 BA · 1,359 sf | $2,700,000 | $1,987/sf | off-mkt |
| Jan 30, 2025 | PH1 | 2 BR · 2 BA · 1,359 sf | $2,650,000 | $1,950/sf | -10.2% |
| Dec 18, 2023 | 4N | 1 BR · 1 BA · 680 sf | $1,270,000 | $1,868/sf | -1.9% |
| Jun 23, 2022 | 5S | 1 BR · 1 BA · 784 sf | $1,250,000 | $1,594/sf | +0.1% |
| Dec 27, 2021 | 8 | 2 BR · 2 BA · 1,359 sf | $2,950,000 | $2,171/sf | -7.5% |
| Sep 23, 2021 | PH3 | 2 BR · 2.5 BA · 1,317 sf | $4,600,000 | $3,493/sf | off-mkt |
| Jul 6, 2017 | PK1 | 157 sf | $250,000 | $1,592/sf | off-mkt |
Market read. Most recent trades (2026) cleared a median $1,654/sf across 1 sale. Median listing discount 2.6% 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.
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 1-00459-7502) 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 from recorded condo declarations and offering plans.
What to know if you’re buying
Read the construction record, not the reputation. The architect of record was later barred from filing with the Department of Buildings over unrelated Brooklyn projects. The new-building job here was signed off by DOB in February 2010. Pull the DOB record and the certificate history yourself; it is public, and doing so converts an anxiety into a fact.
The commercial floors are a third of the building. Understand the common-charge allocation, the institutional and retail uses at the base, and what the commercial units' separate tax posture means for the residential section's share of any assessment.
Taxes are full and final. There is no abatement stepping up in the background. Model the current bill.
Confirm whether a parking unit is included. Parking here is a separately deeded condominium unit, and its presence or absence is one of the largest single value swings between otherwise similar residences.
Test the exposures. The neighbors to the east are landmarked and low, which protects light on that side. The Bowery side is a different story — evaluate what can be built adjacent before assuming a view.
What to know if you’re selling
Lead with the lot. Fourteen full-floor-scale residences with 13-foot ceilings, a rooftop pool and deeded parking on the edge of a historic district is a combination the surrounding blocks structurally cannot reproduce.
Present the tax position plainly. A fully burned-off abatement is a selling point against competing inventory whose taxes are scheduled to rise. Pair the current bill with a True Monthly Carrying Cost analysis.
Price by line, not by building. The asymmetrical plan means floor area, ceiling condition and terrace access vary more between units here than in a conventional stacked building. Building averages will misprice both directions.
Comparable buildings
If you're considering 52E4, also evaluate:
- 25 Bond Street — 2008 boutique NoHo condominium of the same development cycle and buyer profile
- 22 Bond Street — six full-floor duplex residences; the closest peer for scale and full-floor living in NoHo
- 1 Bond Street — the Robbins & Appleton Building; the landmarked loft-conversion alternative a block west
- 27 Great Jones Street — loft conversion of two 19th-century buildings; the prewar alternative at similar unit scale
- 250 Bowery — 2013 ground-up Bowery condominium; the newer, more conventionally stacked alternative
- 260 Bowery — 2017 ground-up condominium; the most recent new construction on the same corridor
- 195 Bowery — modern loft tower built above a former bank building; comparable ceiling heights, larger building
- 14 East 4th Street — The Silk Building; the large prewar loft conversion on the same street
- 1 Astor Place — 2005 Astor Place Tower; the other architecturally assertive downtown condominium of the era
- 21 Astor Place — 2003 conversion of an 1890 building; the loft-conversion alternative nearby
The neighborhood
For the full corridor — architecture, schools, transit, and pricing across East Village + NoHo — read The Roebling Team Guide to East Village + NoHo.
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 52E4?
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A Private Pricing Opinion — what your apartment at 52E4 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.