620 Broadway

Thirty-one and three-quarter feet of Broadway frontage, 196.67 feet of depth, six stories and about 32,400 gross square feet. The Broadway elevation is Snook's Renaissance Revival composition in Badger's iron: tiers of paired Corinthian columns supporting arches, with the flat wall surfaces between them cast to imitate cut stone. The bolt heads that fix the iron to the structure behind it are still visible at close range. The Crosby Street rear is the utilitarian side of the same building.

The façade was repainted around the turn of this century in cream columns against a strong blue field — a deliberately non-historic scheme rather than the stone-imitating colors Snook specified, and one that draws comment. The AIA Guide to New York City was less troubled by the color than by the flat bronze-anodized aluminum replacement windows, which it criticized in print.

Eleven residences across six floors with 28,115 square feet of residential area means the typical home here is a large full-floor or near-full-floor loft. The retail base occupies the ground floor and cellar, so residential floors begin above it. The upper floors carry the best light; the sixth floor and penthouse level have been renovated as a duplex under filings in 2002 and again in 2017. Department of Buildings records show a mechanical penthouse added on the roof in 2003, a lobby and entrance renovation in 2009, an accessible ramp at the store entrance in 2014, and underpinning and grouting beneath the existing footings in 2010 — the last of these almost certainly protective work in connection with construction next door, and worth asking about.

An eleven-unit elevator cooperative in an 1858 building carries an old-building maintenance burden and a small base to spread it across. The visible capital history is reasonable: façade repair filings in 2005 and a masonry and areaway program in 2017, sprinkler modifications in 2009, the lobby renovation in 2009, and the 2017–19 Alteration Type 1 work that produced the current temporary certificates of occupancy. Staffing, elevator arrangements, heat and utility configuration and superintendent coverage are not established in the public record and should be confirmed with the managing agent.

Landmarks jurisdiction is total here. The Broadway front is a designated cast-iron elevation inside the NoHo Historic District, and any work touching it — paint, windows, storefront, ironwork — requires a permit. Buyers planning a renovation should assume Landmarks review for anything visible and should budget the calendar as well as the cost.

Nothing in this building's policy stack is published anywhere. No offering plan and no financial statement for 620 Broadway was located in either the Compass Offering Plan Library or The Roebling Research Library. Every item below must be obtained in writing from the managing agent, and in an eleven-unit loft cooperative it should be obtained before an offer:

Board package and interview. Eleven shareholders means a small board of neighbors reviewing a complete financial package — tax returns, statements, reference letters — followed by an interview. Prepare with the Co-op Board Qualification Calculator.

Financing ceiling and post-closing liquidity. Undocumented. Ask for the maximum permitted loan-to-value and the post-closing liquidity standard, and ask what the board has actually applied to recent purchasers rather than what the proprietary lease permits.

Sublet policy and flip tax. Undocumented. Ask whether subletting is permitted, after what period of ownership, for what term, and at what fee — and get the flip tax formula in writing, because at this building's price points it is the largest single line in a seller's net proceeds.

Pied-à-terre, trusts and LLCs. Undocumented. If your purchase depends on an entity, a trust or non-primary occupancy, raise it in the first conversation rather than at board-package stage.

JLWQA occupancy. The apartments are Joint Living-Work Quarters for Artists. Historically that tied occupancy to artist certification. The SoHo/NoHo Neighborhood Plan adopted in December 2021 created a route to legalizing non-artist residential occupancy through a per-square-foot contribution to a city arts fund while preserving JLWQA as an option. What matters to an individual purchaser is what the certificate of occupancy currently says, whether this building or this apartment has been converted to conventional residential use, and what position the cooperative has taken. Ask the managing agent and instruct your attorney to confirm it — it can affect financing and it will affect the lien and title search.

Loft Law status. No Interim Multiple Dwelling registration for this building was located in the records reviewed, and the conversion history — a 1980–82 alteration legalized through the Department of Buildings and supported by a J-51 grant — is consistent with a building that left Loft Board jurisdiction rather than one that remained under it. That is an inference from the record, not a certification. Confirm with the managing agent.

No Board of Standards and Appeals variance appears in the records reviewed for this lot. Residential use here rested on the JLWQA provisions of the M1-5 zoning that governed NoHo until the 2021 rezoning, not on a use variance.

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.

Market read. $/sf is measured on the latest sales with reliable square footage (2019): a median $1,310/sf across 2 sales. The building has traded as recently as 2024. Median listing discount 7.6% from the last ask — a recurring negotiation gap worth pricing into any offer or listing strategy.

Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 1-00522-0004) 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.

Resolve the certificate of occupancy before you sign. Two temporary certificates in 2019 and no final in the record reviewed. Your attorney should establish the current status in writing; lenders ask about it.

Read the JLWQA classification as a live item. It is an occupancy category with consequences, not a historical label, and it interacts with the post-2021 zoning framework. Confirm what applies to the specific apartment.

Underwrite the underlying mortgage on its terms, not its size. Roughly $2.7 million consolidated in December 2024 across eleven apartments. A recent refinancing is good news, but ask for the rate, the amortization and the maturity, and run the result through the True Monthly Carrying Cost Calculator.

Ask about the 2010 underpinning and the façade cycle. Underpinning beneath the footings of an 1858 building is not routine maintenance. Ask why it was done, who paid, and what the current façade and window program looks like under Landmarks.

Lead with the building. An 1858 Snook-and-Badger cast-iron front, the earliest surviving one in the NoHo Historic District, with a documented first tenancy as the successor exhibition to the Crystal Palace. That story is verifiable, unusual, and it is the reason a buyer chooses this building over a larger one with better services.

Sell the through-block plan. Thirty-two feet wide and 197 feet deep produces double-exposure full-floor lofts that no new construction replicates. Floor plans and light, not amenities, are the argument.

Front-load the paperwork. Because nothing here is published, the first serious buyer will ask for the financials, the house rules, the certificate of occupancy status and the JLWQA position all at once. Having them ready — and having the flip tax in writing so you can run the Seller Closing Cost Calculator — is what keeps a deal in a building this small from stalling.

If you're considering 620 Broadway, also evaluate:

• 644 Broadway — the closest like-for-like, a NoHo Historic District loft cooperative two blocks north
• 684 Broadway — converted loft building on the same stretch of Broadway
• 688 Broadway — comparable NoHo loft cooperative
• 682 Broadway — loft alternative a few doors away
• 718 Broadway — larger NoHo loft building near Astor Place
• 54 Bleecker Street — on the same tax block, for buyers comparing tenure and scale
• 40 Bleecker Street — the new-development condominium comparison in NoHo
• 36 Bleecker Street — prewar Bleecker Street alternative
• 10 Bleecker Street — NoHo East alternative, for buyers weighing district and price
• 583 Broadway — the SoHo loft cooperative comparison south of Houston