70 Greene Street

The elevation is brick, three bays wide, with the iron shopfront line that the whole street shares at the base. The Commission's 1973 entry is terse — brick, four stories, three bays, altered 1872 — and the interest of the building is contextual rather than ornamental: it is the low, early, domestic building on a block of tall iron commercial palaces, and the visual rhythm of Greene Street between Spring and Broome depends on it being exactly that.

Above the original four floors sits the story added under the 2008 alteration, together with an accessory mezzanine level. The recorded unit schedule places one residence on each of the second and third floors at 2,216 square feet apiece and a larger, multi-level residence of 4,739 square feet above them. Each residence therefore occupies its own floor plate with windows front and rear and no interior corridor to speak of — the elevator installed under the conversion, for which the cellar was underpinned to cut a new pit, serves what is effectively a private landing on each level. Confirm the specific unit's square footage and level count against the recorded floor plans rather than against the tax roll.

This is a four-lot building with three apartments in it, and it operates accordingly: no staff, no amenity program, an elevator and a façade and a roof divided among a very small number of owners. The practical consequence is that any single capital item — the elevator, the roof, the Greene Street elevation — lands on a denominator of three residential units and one commercial unit. Ask for the current budget, the reserve balance, the minutes, and whether the commercial unit contributes to reserves on the same basis as the residences.

One item that does not apply here is worth naming, because it applies to most of the block. At five stories, 70 Greene sits below the height threshold for the Façade Inspection and Safety Program, and no FISP filing appears in the Department of Buildings record for this building. The recurring five-year façade inspection cost that burdens taller neighbors is not part of this building's operating math.

The lot sits inside the SoHo–Cast Iron Historic District. Exterior alterations generally require LPC approval, and qualifying work can be approved at staff level even when visible from a public thoroughfare. A Certificate of Appropriateness involves Commission review and a public hearing; a Certificate of No Effect or Permit for Minor Work may apply depending on scope and the LPC rules. Confirm any maintenance exemption and obtain required LPC approval before the relevant DOB permit.

The record for this lot is instructive. Across nearly thirty years of filings — Certificates of No Effect in 1998, 2008, 2010, 2011 and again in March, May and August of 2025; Permits for Minor Work in 1999 and 2013; Notices of Compliance in 2004, 2011 and 2017; and a 2013 amendment, Landmarks docket 14-4893, which the Department of Buildings vault-reinforcement filing cites by number — no Certificate of Appropriateness appears. The reviewed records show staff-level instruments, but they do not establish that every part of the nine-year conversion was in kind or determine the permit route for future work. Confirm the proposed scope against current LPC rules.

Ownership form: Condominium. Purchases close through a board right of first refusal rather than a cooperative approval. Thirty to forty-five days is a typical closing estimate.

Pied-à-terre, subletting, LLC, trust and foreign ownership: Not documented; confirm in the declaration, bylaws and house rules. Minimum lease terms and any sublet fee should be confirmed with the managing agent.

Pets and house rules: Not documented in public records. Request the house rules with the declaration and by-laws.

Flip tax: Not documented in public records. Confirm any resale capital contribution before pricing a sale.

Occupancy classification: The 2009 zoning examination filing establishes that the building's use before the current conversion was Joint Live-Work Quarters for Artists, the classification that governed nearly all residential occupancy in SoHo under the pre-2021 manufacturing zoning. The Type 1 that produced the current condition carried the building at occupancy classification R-2, and a final certificate of occupancy issued in May 2017. The December 2021 SoHo/NoHo rezoning changed the forward-looking rules; it did not amend anybody's existing certificate of occupancy. Whether the 2017 certificate retains an artist-certification restriction cannot be resolved from the online record. Read the certificate itself, and have counsel read it, before contract.

Real estate taxes: No exemption of any kind appears on the unit lots. Underwrite full unabated taxes against the current bill on the specific unit, then apply the co-op/condo abatement only if the buyer will occupy the unit as a primary residence.

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.

Market read. $/sf is measured on the latest sales with reliable square footage (2022): a median $1,512/sf (recorded) across 1 sale. The building has traded as recently as 2023. Median listing discount 2.9% 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 1-00485-7503; each condominium apartment is its own tax lot). 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.

Read the certificate of occupancy, not a summary of it. The prior use was Joint Live-Work Quarters for Artists, and the 2021 rezoning does not self-amend an existing certificate. Confirm the permitted use and any required approvals for the intended occupancy.

Understand the commercial unit. One quarter of the building's floor area is a separately owned retail condominium in a four-lot building. Common-charge allocation, percentage interest and use restrictions are all worth reading in the declaration.

A final certificate of occupancy is an asset. It closed May 2, 2017 after five years of temporary certificates. Confirm it with counsel.

Check the three-unit expense allocation. Common-interest percentages and governing documents determine each owner's share; three units do not imply equal thirds. There is no staff and no amenity program, and there is also no scale. Get the reserve position in writing.

Landmarks governs the street elevation. The reviewed records show staff-level approvals. Proposed changes to the Greene Street façade may also qualify for staff review; confirm the applicable permit route with LPC.

Underwrite full taxes. There is no J-51 and no other building exemption on any unit lot in the FY2023 through FY2027 rolls.

If you're considering 70 Greene Street, also evaluate:

• 57 Greene Street — 1877 building converted to condominium in 2016; the recent, higher-specification conversion on the same street
• 93 Greene Street (Greene House) — Henry Fernbach's 1881 building, converted in 1985; the earlier-generation loft conversion two blocks north
• 107 Greene Street — fifteen lofts in a rebuilt cast-iron-era structure with set-back penthouses
• 77 Mercer Street — a separate condominium on the same block, mid-block on the Mercer Street side
• 93 Mercer Street — a cooperative on the same block; the tenure alternative at similar scale
• 43 Wooster Street — ten half-floor residences in an 1885 store-and-loft building; the larger boutique loft alternative
• 105 Wooster Street — full-floor residences in a cast-iron-era loft building
• 30 Crosby Street (The Loft) — 1878 store-and-loft building converted in 2000–2001; comparable vintage and Landmarks posture, with a doorman
• 477 Broome Street — small loft condominium inside the same historic district