73 Remsen Street
73 Remsen Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201
Brooklyn Heights, Brooklyn
BBL 3002480011 · BIN 3002050
- Year built
- 1879
- Type
- Cooperative
- Units
- 1
- Floors
- 53
- Landmark
- Designated
- Pets
- Not addressed in the house rules as filed — confirm current board practice
- Subletting
- Permitted subject to approval of a majority of the board of directors or of shareholders owning at least 50% of outstanding shares (plan as filed, 1983)
- Washer / dryer
- In-apartment laundry in both duplex apartments per the architects' report; the floor-through's cellar storage area includes an area for laundry facilities
Compiled by The Roebling Research Desk from the building’s offering plan, amendments, and related building documents (primary source dated 1983-84 plan as filed). Reported and subject to confirmation. Board policies can change by amendment — confirm at the offer stage.
Almost every cooperative in Brooklyn Heights was made by cutting a building into more apartments. 73 Remsen Street was made by cutting one into fewer. When 73 Remsen Street Associates bought the house in September 1982 it was a fifteen-unit Class A multiple dwelling — a rooming-house-era subdivision of the kind that absorbed dozens of Heights rowhouses in the middle of the twentieth century. The partnership filed ALT 115 of 1983, rebuilt it as a three-unit Class A multiple dwelling, and sold the apartments as a cooperative. The plan is unusual in the district's archive precisely because it is a construction document rather than a tenancy document: no rent-controlled holdovers, no eviction-plan carve-outs, no stabilized rolls. "No apartments are presently occupied," it states flatly.
What the sponsor built is closer to three houses stacked than to an apartment building. The floor-through takes the garden and basement level — three bedrooms, two baths, a wood-burning fireplace, the exclusive rear yard, a private entrance under the stoop. The lower duplex takes the first and second floors: three bedrooms, two and a half baths, two fireplaces. The upper duplex takes the third and fourth, with five bedrooms, three baths, one fireplace, and the exclusive right to build a deck on the roof. Each apartment carries its own boiler and hot-water heater in the cellar and its own storage room; both duplexes have laundry inside. The architects' work list reads like a townhouse renovation — new masonry stoop, new kitchens and baths, four relined fireplaces, new heating, electrical and sprinkler systems, two new private stairs.
The economics are visible in the numbers: $299,700, $575,100, and $475,200 for the three apartments — $1,350,000 for a whole Brooklyn Heights house in 1983 — against a projected first-year budget of about $32,000, of which $26,000 was mortgage interest. By the First Amendment in April 1984, two had gone to contract at $485,000 and $475,000. The result today is a cooperative with almost no institutional overhead: no elevator, no superintendent, no common laundry, no common heat. Three shareholders, three boilers, one stoop, one stair, one roof. It is the least apartment-like cooperative on Remsen Street, and it prices closer to townhouse-floor logic than to per-room co-op logic.
Architecture and unit composition
The house is brick with a brownstone-faced front wall, party walls on both sides, and wood-joist framing on a brick foundation. The lot runs 25 feet 6 inches by 100 feet, the building occupies 55 feet of the depth, and a 25-by-36-foot rear yard sits behind it, entered from the garden-level back bedroom. The roof was originally pitched at the front and flat behind; a wide dormer has since leveled most of the front pitch. Two chimneys run the west party wall, one for the boiler flues and one for four fireplace flues, all clay-tile lined at the rehabilitation.
The apartments are large by district standards — seventeen rooms and seven and a half baths across three units is an average no elevator co-op in the Heights approaches, and the Building Department room counts of four, six, and seven understate bedroom counts of three, three, and five. Windows are original wood double-hung sash with counterweight-and-chain hardware. All of it is protected fabric.
Building operations
73 Remsen Street Corp. has run the building since the 1984 closing. With three shareholders there is no meaningful management layer to evaluate; the governance question replaces it, and it is the central diligence item. A single dissenting owner is a blocking position on every capital decision, and the cost of a roof, a façade cycle, or a stoop repair divides three ways rather than eighty. The corporation's financial statements in The Roebling Research Library run from 2000 forward and are short enough to read end to end — do it, and read the reserve line specifically. Common expense is very low, since heat, hot water, and electricity are separately metered and there is no payroll. The recurring capital items to price are the roof and skylight, the chimneys, the stoop and areaway, and the window sash.
Recent sales
The retrade record
Lines that have traded more than once in the public record — the building’s appreciation arc, apartment by apartment.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Jul 24, 2012 | 3 | $2,800,000 |
| Jun 18, 2012 | 2 | $2,550,000 |
| Sep 22, 2005 | 3 | $2,000,000 |
Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 3-00248-0011) 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
Verify the unit count and the certificate of occupancy first. The plan created three apartments; city records still show a higher figure. Confirm the operative C of O and the current share allocation before anything else.
Price the governance, not just the apartment. Three shareholders means near-unanimity in practice and every capital cost divides by three. Read the financials, the reserve, and any assessment history in full.
Your heat is your bill, and your outdoor rights are unit-specific. Each apartment has its own boiler and gas meter; the garden belongs to the floor-through and the roof to the upper duplex. Model carrying cost accordingly, and confirm what attaches to your apartment.
What to know if you’re selling
Sell the scale. Three-bedroom floor-throughs and five-bedroom duplexes with wood-burning fireplaces are the scarcest configuration in the district. Lead with room counts and ceiling heights, which the plan documents precisely.
Document the 1983–84 rebuild. ALT 115 of 1983 rebuilt the house from the systems out — heating, electrical, sprinklers, kitchens, baths, relined chimneys. That is a real advantage over unrenovated 1840s stock, and buyers reward a paper trail.
Anticipate the records question. Buyer's counsel will notice the unit-count discrepancy. Assemble the C of O, the alteration file, and the share ledger before going to market and the objection disappears.
Comp against townhouse floors. The right precedent set is large duplex and floor-through prewar inventory in the Heights, adjusted for the absence of services.
Comparable buildings
If you're considering 73 Remsen Street, also evaluate:
- 58 Remsen Street — the 1844 corner house down the block, ten apartments and a garden; the other end of the rowhouse-conversion spectrum
- 44 Remsen Street — 1844 Greek Revival walk-up co-op on the same stretch
- 134 Remsen Street — an 1861 pair cut into small apartments; the opposite conversion instinct
- 10 Montague Terrace — a nineteenth-century mansion converted to apartments; the closest peer in fabric
- 45 Pineapple Street (Hamilton House) — 1883 building converted in 1987
- 87 Hicks Street — small self-governed walk-up co-op of the same vintage
- 68 Remsen Street — the full-service prewar cooperative across the street, for contrast
- 76 Remsen Street — the block's small elevator co-op, converted in 1963
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 Remsen Street?
Request a private building brief with the relevant comparable sales, current and off-market availability, and an apartment-specific view of value.
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A Private Pricing Opinion — what your apartment at 73 Remsen 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.