73 Orange Street
71–73 Orange Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201
Brooklyn Heights, Brooklyn
BBL 3002210033 · BIN 3001650
- Year built
- 1900
- Type
- Cooperative
- Units
- 16
- Floors
- 5
- Landmark
- Designated
Most of the north side of Orange Street between Hicks and Henry belongs to Plymouth Church. The congregation's campus fills the block's western end, and the church's own history — Beecher, the Underground Railroad, Lincoln in 1860 — is treated in full on our profile of 72 Orange Street, the 1937 co-op directly across from the sanctuary. What matters about 71–73 Orange Street is different: this is one of the handful of private buildings on the church's blockfront, and the only apartment house among them.
Its neighbors set the frame. Immediately west is 69 Orange Street, which the Department of Finance dates to 1829 — among the oldest surviving houses in the district, and older than Plymouth Church itself. Behind the block, on the Cranberry Street side, stands 80 Cranberry Street, a thirteen-story, 131-unit apartment building of 1930 and one of the tallest structures in the north Heights. Between an 1829 house and a 1930 tower sits a five-story walk-up whose own dating the record cannot agree on: the Department of Finance says 1900, the LPC says 1850 with the style listed as Eclectic. Those entries are not really in conflict — "Eclectic" is what the Commission writes when a façade carries more than one period of work, and an 1850s pair of houses reworked upward into a turn-of-the-century flats building would generate precisely this paper trail. We have not found the alteration filing that would prove it, so we present both dates and leave the inference where it belongs.
What survives is a fifty-foot-wide building on a fifty-foot lot, and that is the most consequential fact for a buyer. Fifty feet of frontage across five floors at sixteen apartments works out to roughly 840 gross square feet per unit — materially larger than the district's other small walk-up co-ops deliver. The recorded numbering shows it: four apartments across the first floor, five across the second, three each on the third and fourth, and a single apartment on the fifth. A one-apartment top floor in a fifty-foot building is a real apartment.
The block does daily work too: the Fruit Streets are the most protected and most photographed part of the district, and this is the quiet end of them — a church garden opposite, Clark Street's 2/3 express two blocks south, the A/C at High Street two blocks the other way.
Architecture and unit composition
The building presents fifty feet four inches of frontage and runs seventy feet deep on a lot a hundred feet deep, leaving a rear yard of roughly thirty feet — worth confirming for garden access from the first-floor apartments.
The recorded floor-and-position numbering describes the plan better than any listing could: the second floor is cut finest at five apartments, the upper floors carry three and then one. Combinations at 23/24 and 43/44 both appear in recorded instruments, so the sixteen units on the city's rolls may not be sixteen apartments today. That is the first question to put to management.
Floor-to-floor heights on the lower floors run generous by walk-up standards — what one would expect from a mid-nineteenth-century structure carried upward rather than a purpose-built tenement. Verify ceiling height on the specific apartment rather than assuming it across the building. Exterior work runs through the LPC; on a façade already classified as Eclectic, expect review to be about matching what is there rather than restoring to a single original condition.
Building operations
71 Orange Ap Corp. runs a sixteen-unit walk-up. No elevator, no doorman, no amenity program in the expense base — which is why maintenance here sits below the district's serviced tiers, and why the capital line does the real work. A masonry building of this age inside a historic district carries a recurring FISP/Local Law 11 façade cycle funded by sixteen shareholders. Ask for three years of financial statements, the current budget, the assessment history, and board minutes covering the most recent façade filing. Management at this scale is frequently self-administered or handled by a small local firm; we do not name an agent that is not publicly documented.
Recent sales
Recent transfers at this building, sourced from NYC Department of Finance records. Apartment-level detail (line, condition, asking-price context) verified upon consultation request.
| Date | Unit | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Apr 1, 2022 | 22 | $855,000 |
| Jul 7, 2016 | 41 | $761,000 |
| May 14, 2013 | 21 | $707,683.75 |
| Jun 3, 2011 | 31 | $560,000 |
| Mar 22, 2005 | #43 | $920,000 |
Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 3-00221-0033) 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.
What to know if you’re buying
Confirm which apartment you are actually buying. With documented combinations at 23/24 and 43/44, the recorded numbering and the current apartment map may differ. Verify the share allocation and any combination approvals on the specific unit.
Get the offering plan. The sponsor, the plan date and any unsold shares are unsettled in the public record here.
Ask about the rear yard. Whether it is common, assigned, or accessible from a first-floor apartment materially changes what the ground-floor units are worth.
Price the walk-up. Five floors, no elevator. The upper apartments are the larger and quieter ones, and also the ones a narrower buyer pool will consider.
What to know if you’re selling
Lead with scale, not services. Fifty feet of frontage and sixteen apartments is the story. Buyers shopping the district's small co-ops are used to 600-square-foot averages; these are half again as large.
Own the blockfront. Plymouth Church's campus and an 1829 house are the immediate neighbors, on a Fruit Streets block inside New York City's first historic district.
Anchor to configuration, not per-room averages. The building's combination history means building-level averages blur real differences.
Prepare buyers for a small-board process. Sixteen shareholders, complete financials, early attorney involvement — set the expectation at the first showing and the timeline stays predictable.
Comparable buildings
If you're considering 73 Orange Street, also evaluate:
- 72 Orange Street — the 1937 elevator co-op directly across the street; the Plymouth Church frontage with services and a roof deck
- 66 Orange Street — the 1912 former Franklin Arms Hotel, converted 1977; courtyards and duplexes two doors west across Orange
- 54 Orange Street — smaller prewar co-op on the same street
- 59 Pineapple Street — Slee & Bryson's 1926 elevator co-op one Fruit Street south
- 60 Pineapple Street — loft-style conversion co-op in the same pocket; open plans against 73 Orange's rooms
- 45 Pineapple Street (Hamilton House) — the north Heights' full-service alternative
- 87 Hicks Street — small 1889 walk-up co-op a block west, at similar intimacy
- 20 Henry Street — contemporary condominium two blocks north for buyers weighing new construction against prewar
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.
Considering a move at 73 Orange Street?
Request a private building brief with the relevant comparable sales, current and off-market availability, and an apartment-specific view of value.
Own an apartment here? See what it would sell for.
A Private Pricing Opinion — what your apartment at 73 Orange 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.