- Year built
- 1910
- Type
- Cooperative
- Landmark
- No
74 Fifth Avenue is a 1910 lower-Fifth loft building with an unusually rich history and an unusually generous floor plan. Designed by Maynicke & Franke for the developer Henry Corn, it carries Secessionist-style motifs — a Viennese-influenced ornamental vocabulary rare on a New York commercial building of its date — and it later became a gathering place for film screenings, lectures, and progressive political activity, the kind of downtown intellectual life that defined Greenwich Village in the mid-century. That cultural lineage is part of the building's identity, but the reason it commands attention today is simpler: scale.
With only three apartments per floor across twelve stories, 74 Fifth delivers loft-sized homes at a per-unit footprint that ranks among the largest in the neighborhood. The building converted to cooperative ownership and has operated as a quiet, owner-occupied co-op ever since, perfectly positioned between Union Square and Washington Square, with the full machinery of the Village — restaurants, the Union Square Greenmarket, the subway hub, and NYU — within a few blocks in every direction.
For buyers, the appeal is loft authenticity on Fifth Avenue: high ceilings, large windows, and full-floor or near-full-floor scale, in a small, established Village co-op with a flexible board posture.
Architecture and unit composition
The building reads as the well-made commercial architecture of its moment — solid masonry, large windows, deep floor plates — distinguished by the Secessionist ornament Maynicke & Franke applied to a vocabulary that was usually plainer. The lower Fifth Avenue setting gives it a dignified address while keeping it in the low-rise, mixed-use grain of the Village rather than among avenue towers.
Inside, the three-apartments-per-floor configuration is the defining trait. With roughly 2,380 square feet of building area per unit, the homes run large by any Manhattan measure — true loft volume with high ceilings and abundant light, accessed by key-lock elevators that open into the residences. Layouts vary, as they do in any conversion shaped from commercial space, which gives the building individuality floor to floor and rewards a careful look at a specific apartment's flow and exposure.
Building operations
74 Fifth Avenue runs as a small, self-possessed Village cooperative with a superintendent on the premises Monday through Saturday and the building services appropriate to a 36-unit loft co-op. The amenity package is deliberately spare — this is a building whose value lives in its lofts and its location, not in a facilities roster. Maintenance reflects the building's operating costs, capital reserve, and underlying mortgage.
The board posture here is comparatively accommodating for a co-op of this caliber. The building permits financing up to 75% of the purchase price and allows pets, and it carries a 1.5% flip tax paid on resale. Purchases clear through a board application package and interview; sublet and pied-à-terre specifics are confirmed by the board and managing agent during the application. The relatively high financing allowance and pet-friendly stance make the building unusually approachable for buyers who find stricter Village co-ops limiting.
Local Law 97
- 2024–2029 annual penalty
- $112,983/yr
- 2030–2034 annual penalty
- $185,624/yr
- Per unit / month range
- $262 – $430
Facade safety — Local Law 11
Safe to live in today — but the last inspection flagged repairs that are due on a deadline, so facade work and its cost are coming. Whether that’s a real concern depends on the scope, the timing, and how the building plans to pay for it — reserves or an assessment — which is exactly what we’d dig into for you.
QEWI = Qualified Exterior Wall Inspector — the licensed engineer the city requires to sign the report (the independent expert, not the managing agent). Source: NYC DOB facade filings (FISP) · The Roebling Research Library.
See the full facade history →Recent sales
With 36 apartments, turnover is light — a handful of resales in a typical year, sometimes fewer. The scarcity is meaningful: full-floor and three-per-floor loft homes on lower Fifth Avenue are a finite category, and when one trades it draws focused interest from buyers who specifically want Village scale. Pricing tracks the lower-Fifth and Greenwich Village loft co-op market, where square footage, ceiling height, light, and floor level drive value. The building's auto-generated sales record reflects recorded transfers as they post; for a read on a specific line, a building-specific valuation is the right tool.
What to know if you’re buying
The case for buying here is large, light-filled loft living on Fifth Avenue with a forgiving board. The 75% financing allowance and pet policy make the building meaningfully easier to qualify for and live in than many Village co-ops, and the three-per-floor scale delivers space that new construction rarely matches at this price. The trade-offs are the co-op format itself — a board package, an interview, and the 1.5% flip tax due on eventual resale — and the building's intentionally minimal amenities; there is no full-time doorman or gym, by design. Buyers who want maximal space, a central Village location, and a more accommodating board will find the building well-matched, and should evaluate a specific apartment closely, since layouts differ floor to floor.
What to know if you’re selling
A resale at 74 Fifth markets on space, light, and address: the loft-scale floor plan, the Secessionist-detailed 1910 architecture, and the lower-Fifth location between two of the Village's great squares. The relatively flexible board — 75% financing, pets permitted — widens the qualified buyer pool, which is a genuine selling point worth stating plainly. Pricing belongs against other Village and lower-Fifth loft co-ops, with credit for floor level, light, and any owner improvements. Presentation should read the volume: these apartments show best when the ceiling height and the windows are allowed to carry the room. The 1.5% flip tax and the board-approval timeline are part of the transaction math, and pricing to the buyer who wants true loft scale produces the cleanest sale.
Comparable buildings
If you're evaluating 74 Fifth Avenue, these nearby Greenwich Village and lower-Fifth co-ops make a useful comparison set:
- 69 Fifth Avenue — lower Fifth Avenue pre-war co-op
- 45 Fifth Avenue — Village pre-war co-op near Washington Square
- 51 Fifth Avenue — lower Fifth pre-war cooperative
- 24 Fifth Avenue — Fifth Avenue Hotel-era pre-war co-op
- 2 Fifth Avenue — Washington Square North co-op
- One Fifth Avenue — landmark Art Deco co-op at Washington Square
The Roebling Team at 74 Fifth Avenue
The Roebling Team at Compass specializes in Greenwich Village lofts and lower-Fifth co-ops — buildings where space, light, and a central Village location drive value. We publish this profile because buyers and sellers evaluating 74 Fifth Avenue deserve building-specific intelligence: the architecture and history, the unusually flexible board posture, and where a given loft sits against the Village market.
If you're considering a purchase or sale at 74 Fifth Avenue, a 30-minute consultation is the right starting point.
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