53 East 66th Street
53 East 66th Street, New York, NY 10065
BBL 1013810025 · BIN 1041170
- Year built
- 1923
- Type
- Cooperative
- Landmark status
- Not an individual landmark; in the Upper East Side Historic District
- NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission records, updated February 2026
- Doorman
- Full-time doorman
Every recorded sale at this building, 2004–2025
Bedroom-by-bedroom medians, the full transfer record, and how units trade against ask.
- Recent range
- $1.2M – $8.3M
- Listing discount
- 6.7%
- Recorded transfers
- 34
Own an apartment here? See what it would sell for.
A Private Pricing Opinion — what your apartment at 53 East 66th 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.
53 East 66th Street carries a name that pre-war buyers recognize: Mott B. Schmidt, the architect whose restrained, classically literate work defined a certain kind of understated Upper East Side luxury — the same hand behind 19 East 72nd Street and 1088 Park Avenue. Built in 1923 on a prime Lenox Hill block between Park and Madison, it is a boutique, full-service cooperative of roughly 31 homes, the size at which a building can run as a quiet, well-known house rather than an institution.
Schmidt's facade does what his best work always did — it behaves. A brick-and-stone front with decorative moldings and patterned brickwork, it reads as a confident, gracious 1920s apartment house rather than a showpiece, sitting comfortably among the pre-war stock on one of the East Side's most desirable cross streets. The block itself is the kind buyers pay up for: steps from the Madison Avenue boutiques and galleries, two blocks from Central Park, and squarely inside the Lenox Hill grid whose current values should be assessed through dated comparable sales.
For the buyer who wants a named-architect pre-war apartment at boutique scale, with 24-hour service compare the unit's actual maintenance, assessments and reserve obligations before deciding whether 53 East 66th fits the budget.
Architecture and unit composition
Schmidt gave the building a disciplined pre-war exterior: a ten-story brick-and-stone front detailed with decorative moldings and patterned brickwork, in the gracious-but-unflashy register that runs through his residential work. The result is a facade that ages well and reads as belonging to its block.
Inside, the residences carry the layouts of their era — real foyers, separated public and private wings, high ceilings, and room counts to evaluate alongside documented interior areas and plans. With roughly 31 homes across ten stories the totals alone do not establish apartment size or floor-through configurations; review the actual unit plans and recorded combinations.
Building operations
53 East 66th runs as a full-service boutique cooperative: a 24-hour doorman and a live-in resident manager. Shareholders have access to a fitness room and basement storage — a genuinely useful amenity set for a building this size. Admissions follow a co-op board application and interview; confirm the building's current financing, liquidity and occupancy requirements from its application instructions, and review the current budget, audited statements, debt and any assessments.
Building staffing and amenities
- Doorman
- Full-time doormanSource: The Roebling Team's building profile
- Live-in superintendent
- YesSource: The Roebling Team's building profile
- Elevator
- YesSource: NYC Department of City Planning records (PLUTO)
- Amenities noted
- Fitness room, storageSource: The Roebling Team's building profile
Staffing and amenities as our building profile and recent listing records describe them. A feature not listed is not confirmed absent. Outdoor space, parking and some facilities can belong to particular apartments or to a separate owner; confirm access for the specific apartment.
Local Law 97
- 2024–2029 annual penalty
- $0 (under cap)
- 2030–2034 annual penalty
- $67,188/yr
- Per unit / month range
- $0 – $181
- Modeled exposure split equally across 31 units (the residential count on the city's lot record). Not an assessed amount; co-op shareholders are typically charged by share allocation.
Source: NYC LL84 benchmarking and PLUTO · The Roebling Research Library. City data last refreshed October 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. A filed Safe grade is not a guarantee of current condition: owners still maintain the facade and, where required, observe parapets each year. Future inspection timing (Local Law 49 of 2025 changed the cycle framework from October 1, 2026), repair and any assessment decisions remain building-specific.
How to read this, and where it comes from
QEWI = Qualified Exterior Wall Inspector — a licensed professional engineer or registered architect who meets DOB’s FISP qualifications and signs 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 data last refreshed October 2026.
Recent sales
Recent transfers 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 14, 2023 | 5AB | 4 BR · 4 BA | $8,350,000 | -12.1% | |
| May 17, 2023 | 2D | 2 BR · 2.5 BA | $1,200,000 | -14.0% | |
| Feb 23, 2023 | PHB | 4 BR · 3 BA · 3,000 sf | $5,200,000 | $1,733/sf | -23.0% |
| Jun 8, 2022 | 7D | 2 BR · 2 BA | $2,424,000 | -1.1% | |
| Apr 19, 2021 | 8CD | 4 BR · 4 BA | $2,800,000 | -19.4% | |
| Mar 2, 2021 | 5C | 2 BR · 3 BA | $2,395,000 | +0.0% | |
| Mar 5, 2020 | 6B | 4 BR · 3 BA | $2,506,000 | -34.1% | |
| Oct 3, 2018 | 7D | 2 BR · 3 BA | $2,200,000 | -6.4% |
Market read. $/sf is measured on the latest sales with reliable square footage (2023): a median $1,733/sf (recorded) across 1 sale. The building has traded as recently as 2025. Median listing discount 6.9% 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 1-01381-0025). 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 on co-ops is not officially recorded, figures shown are approximate.
What would your apartment rent for?
Enter your apartment and I'll send you what it would rent for, from comparable closed leases at 53 East 66th Street and nearby.
Buying here? Co-op closing costs typically run 2 to 3% of the price. See NYC co-op and condo closing costs, line by line.
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What to know if you’re buying
Buy the layout and the provenance. In a 31-unit Schmidt building, the difference between lines is the difference between distinct homes — identify the exposure, floor, and room count you need before chasing a number. Higher floors and the larger combined apartments are the rarest and most competitive when they appear. Come prepared for a co-op board package and interview, confirm the building's financing and liquidity requirements in its application instructions, and budget for standard New York co-op closing costs. The 24-hour doorman, live-in manager, and gym are exactly the operations you want in a boutique pre-war building.
What to know if you’re selling
Lead with the building and the block. A Mott B. Schmidt facade, a 1923 pedigree, and a prime Lenox Hill location between Park and Madison are durable differentiators, and the 24-hour staffing and live-in manager answer the service question. Price against the building's own recent trades and the comparable Lenox Hill pre-war set, and stage to let the pre-war proportions and detail read. A complete board package helps the buyer's advisers assess the transaction; it does not protect a subsequent resale price.
Comparable buildings
If you're considering 53 East 66th Street, these nearby Lenox Hill buildings make a useful comparison set:
- 1 East 66th Street — co-op on the same street toward Fifth
- 845 Fifth Avenue (4 East 66th Street) — Fifth-Avenue-adjacent pre-war cooperative
- 45 East 66th Street — landmark pre-war co-op nearby
- 681 Madison Avenue — nearby Lenox Hill full-service co-op
- 800 Park Avenue — Park Avenue cooperative nearby
More Upper East Side buildings
- 51 East 90th Street — 1926 co-op by George F. Pelham
- 52 East 72nd Street (Claremont House) — 1986 condominium
- 52 East 78th Street & 61 East 77th Street — 1916 co-op
- 55 East 72nd Street — 1924 co-op by Albert Joseph Bodker
- 55 East 76th Street — 1883 co-op
- 55 East 86th Street — 1924 condominium
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.
Considering a move at 53 East 66th Street?
Request a private building brief with the relevant comparable sales, current and off-market availability, and an apartment-specific view of value.
646.939.7375 · c.cohen@compass.com