520 West 45th Street (Inkwell)
520 West 45th Street, New York, NY 10036
BBL 1010737504 · BIN 1089441
Every recorded sale at this building, 2017–2026
Price-per-square-foot over time, the line- and floor-premium curves, and every recorded sale.
- Median $/sf (floor-adjusted)
- $1,822
- Listing discount
- 1.5%
- Recorded sales
- 26
- On record
- 2017–2026
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Inkwell is an 18-unit boutique condominium carved from the former P.S. 51, the Elias Howe School — a 1905 Beaux-Arts public school reportedly among the first in New York to serve students lunch. Developed by the Gotham Organization and converted in 2016, the building leans into its schoolhouse provenance as its identity, with interiors by AvroKO, the design firm behind SoHo's Public restaurant and the nearby Gotham West food hall.
The conversion preserved the schoolhouse's grand proportions — roughly 13-foot ceilings and tall original-scale windows — while threading in playful nostalgia: chalkboards beside apartment entries, cubbies, rolling library ladders, and caged ceiling fans in the amenity spaces. The result is a distinctive low-rise address in Clinton rather than a standard-issue conversion.
Architecture and building operations
Inkwell is a five-story Beaux-Arts masonry building, erected in 1905 as P.S. 51 and named for the sewing-machine inventor Elias Howe. The 2016 conversion by the Gotham Organization, with SLCE as architect of record and AvroKO on interiors, produced 18 large residences with generous two- to three-bedroom layouts, lofty ceilings, and tall schoolhouse windows.
Operations: elevator building with attended service. Amenities include a garden-level fitness room fitted with a Peloton and rowing equipment and an adjacent outdoor terrace, a laundry room, a bike room, and private storage that transfers with purchase. Pets are permitted. Exact staffing and doorman schedule should be confirmed against the offering plan.
Policy framework
- Type: Condominium
- Pets: Permitted
- Pied-à-terre: Permitted
- Subletting: Permitted
- Financing: Standard condominium LTV
- LLC/trust/foreign buyers: All permitted
- Right of first refusal: Procedural only
Local Law 97
- 2024–2029 annual penalty
- $0 (under cap)
- 2030–2034 annual penalty
- $12,857/yr
- Per unit / month range
- $0 – $60
- Modeled exposure split equally across 18 units (the city tax-lot count). Not an assessed amount; co-op shareholders are typically charged by share allocation.
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 →Management & transfer contacts
- Notable fees
- Condo. App fee $250 non-refundable; credit check $200/applicant; move-in/out deposits $500 each refundable
Recent sales
Recent closings at this building, from The Roebling Research Library. 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 29, 2026 | 5B | 2 BR · 2 BA · 1,306 sf | $2,380,000 | $1,822/sf | -4.8% |
| Aug 5, 2024 | 2A | 2 BR · 2 BA · 1,401 sf | $1,995,000 | $1,424/sf | +0.0% |
| Aug 10, 2022 | 1A | 3 BR · 3 BA · 1,901 sf | $2,712,500 | $1,427/sf | -6.3% |
| Jul 27, 2022 | 3B | 2 BR · 2 BA · 1,306 sf | $1,940,000 | $1,485/sf | -2.8% |
| May 24, 2022 | 2C | 2 BR · 2 BA · 1,309 sf | $1,965,000 | $1,501/sf | -1.5% |
| Apr 20, 2022 | 3A | 2 BR · 2 BA · 1,401 sf | $2,085,000 | $1,488/sf | -5.0% |
| May 27, 2021 | 1B | 3 BR · 2.5 BA · 2,042 sf | $2,960,000 | $1,450/sf | -1.3% |
| Mar 1, 2018 | 4D | 2 BR · 1,211 sf | $1,850,000 | $1,528/sf | -2.6% |
Market read. Most recent trades (2026) cleared a median $1,822/sf (floor-adjusted) across 1 sale. Floor-adjusted means each sale is restated to a constant mix of floors, so the figure can differ from the plain median of the sales listed above. 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.
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 1-01073-7504). Apartment-level facts (line, condition, asking-price context) curated and cross-verified in The Roebling Research Library. 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.
Buying here? Condo closing costs with a mortgage typically run 3 to 6% of the price. See NYC co-op and condo closing costs, line by line.
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Comparable buildings
- 520 West 28th Street — Hadid 2017; nearby West Side starchitect condo peer
- One High Line (76 Eleventh Avenue) — Bjarke Ingels; nearby West Side condo peer
- 100 Eleventh Avenue — Nouvel 2010; nearby West Side starchitect peer
- 245 Tenth Avenue — Della Valle Bernheimer 2010; nearby West Side condo peer
- 515 West 18th Street (Lantern House) — Heatherwick 2021; nearby West Side condo peer
Sources: The Roebling Research Library (offering plans, house rules, financial statements, board minutes, internal transaction records); NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers; publicly recorded NYC building data.
More Hell's Kitchen buildings
- The 505 (505 West 47th Street) — 2008 condominium by H. Thomas O'Hara Architects
- 516 West 47th Street — 2003 condominium by Kutnicki Bernstein Architects
- 517 West 46th Street (Clinton West) — 2007 condominium by Kutnicki Bernstein Architects
- 529 West 42nd Street — co-op
- 545 West 48th Street — 2015 condominium
- 547 West 47th Street (The West) — 2020 condominium by Ismael Leyva Architects
The neighborhood
For the full corridor — architecture, transit, and pricing across Hell's Kitchen — read The Roebling Team Guide to Hell's Kitchen.
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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