74 Reade Street

Five full floors plus a penthouse level, on an irregular 3,498-square-foot lot with about 57 feet of frontage on Reade Street and roughly 61 feet of depth. The building fills nearly the whole lot: 20,788 gross square feet, all of it residential today. The elevation is Italianate — masonry with marble and stone, and a cast-iron cornice — and the restored wood-and-glass storefront at grade dates to the 2003 restoration rather than to 1859.

Residences run east and west on each floor. Recorded share transfers cover 1E, 1W, 2W, 2ER, 2EF, 3E, 3W, 4E, 5E and 5W, plus the sixth-floor penthouse — which means the ground floor holds residences as well, an unusual configuration created by the 2003 conversion of the first floor and cellar. Average scale is roughly 1,890 gross square feet, but that average conceals real variation: the 2015 combination under TPPN 3/97 joined two apartments with a new convenience stair, the 2000 penthouse addition created a duplex at the top, and the ground-floor homes carry cellar space that the upper floors do not.

DOB filings across the 2010s read like a building working through deferred capital: façade renovation, repainting and repointing in 2014; lobby doors, windows and walls renovated the same year; a skylight replaced in 2014 and again in 2018; a sidewalk shed in 2013. Interior alteration filings for individual apartments run more or less continuously from 2009 to 2020, which is the ordinary rhythm of a loft co-op where each owner renovates on their own schedule.

An eleven-residence loft cooperative with an elevator, cellar storage and no doorman. At this scale the corporation is not required to maintain a resident superintendent, and the operating budget reflects that: financial statements on file for the year ended August 31, 2018 show maintenance revenue of roughly $329,000 carrying the whole building, with real estate taxes alone absorbing about 52 percent of total income — a striking figure, and the single most important number for anyone underwriting monthly cost here. Repairs and maintenance and interest were the next two largest lines.

The balance sheet at that date showed roughly $790,000 in cash against total assets of about $1.88 million, with mortgage debt of approximately $1.23 million following the May 2017 consolidation and extension to $1,250,000. A retained deficit of roughly $805,000 appears on the same statements; in a small co-op that has been capitalizing improvements for decades, that is an accounting artifact more often than a distress signal, but it is worth having your accountant read the notes rather than the headline. These statements are reviewed rather than audited, which is common in buildings this size and which a buyer should know before relying on them.

Because the statements on file are several years old, the two things to request first from the managing agent are the most recent year-end statements and the current status of the underlying mortgage — balance, rate and maturity date. In an eleven-unit corporation, a refinancing at an unfavorable moment is felt directly in the maintenance line.

Original use and date: commercial store and lofts, 1859–60, per LPC.

The alterations that created and completed residential use: residential occupancy pre-dates the digitized DOB record and was legalized under the Loft Law framework in the early 1980s alongside the cooperative conversion. Two Alteration Type 1 applications in 2003 converted the cellar from storage and the first floor from commercial use to residential, adding partitions, a mezzanine, a kitchen, bathrooms and a new stair between the cellar and the first floor. A further Alteration Type 1 filed in April 2016 amended the occupancy classification from the prior code's RES to R-2 and reduced the dwelling-unit count from 12 to 11; temporary certificates of occupancy ran from June 2018 through early 2019, and the final certificate of occupancy issued November 29, 2019.

Zoning and JLWQA: C6-2A, residential as-of-right. No JLWQA designation appears in the records reviewed; DOB carried the building at J-2 and then R-2 occupancy.

BSA variance: none for this lot appears in public records.

Loft Law / IMD: yes — Article 7-C of the Multiple Dwelling Law, Sections 280–287, with Loft Board regulations governing subscription rights, per the offering plan on file.

J-51: initiated 1984; 12-year exemption; 50 percent abatement; certified alteration cost about $83,300. Benefits ran through the 1997 assessment year and are fully exhausted. The 1983 plan anticipated the application and warned that a permanent certificate of occupancy would be a precondition — the record shows the benefit was in fact granted.

The offering plan, by-laws, house rules and purchase application on file establish the structure. The current policy stack — the numbers a buyer actually needs — is not established by the reviewed documents; obtain current written terms from the managing agent and reconcile them with the operative governing documents.

Ownership form: cooperative. You buy shares and a proprietary lease. The corporation reports 1,339 shares issued of 1,500 authorized.

Board package and interview: documented and demanding for a building of this size. The purchase application on file calls for two years of signed tax returns, three months of bank statements, employment verification or a CPA letter if self-employed, two business and two personal reference letters per applicant, a bank reference, a loan commitment letter, three original recognition agreements where the purchase is financed, and a signed and notarized assumption-of-alteration form — or, where no alterations have been done, a notarized letter saying so. That last item is specific to a loft building with a long history of owner-executed work, and it means a buyer inherits responsibility for a predecessor's alterations. Have counsel read it. Non-refundable fees run $550 for the application plus $150 per applicant for credit checks, with roughly 7–10 business days for review.

Pets: the house rules on file use the traditional prewar formulation — no bird or animal may be kept without the express written permission of the lessor, and that permission is revocable. Confirm current practice in writing.

Obtain in writing before offering: the financing ceiling and minimum down payment; the post-closing liquidity standard; the sublet policy, including seasoning, duration cap and sublet fee; whether pied-à-terre purchase is entertained — the purchase application asks directly whether the apartment will be the buyer's primary residence; whether trusts or limited liability companies may take title and on what guarantees; and the flip tax or transfer fee, its measure and which side pays it.

Alteration rules. In a legalized loft in a historic district, house rules have to reach floor loading, sprinkler tie-ins, mezzanines, skylights and window replacement. Ask for the current rules and read them with your architect before you price a renovation.

Recent sales

Recent transfers 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 (2015): a median $1,733/sf (recorded) across 1 sale. The building has traded as recently as 2026. Median listing discount 2.7% 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 1-00150-0010). 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 on co-ops is not officially recorded, figures shown are approximate.

Read the 2019 certificate of occupancy, and read the Loft Law history behind it. This building spent nearly forty years between its first temporary C of O and its final one. That story is over, and the closure is an asset — but the specific apartment's legal configuration is what the C of O describes, and it should match what you are buying.

Take the assumption-of-alteration form seriously. The board package requires you to assume responsibility for prior owners' alterations, or to certify that none were made. In a loft building with a fifty-year renovation history, that is a real allocation of risk. Have counsel review the alteration files for your apartment before you sign.

Underwrite the tax line, not the maintenance line. Real estate taxes have run above half of total income here. Ask the managing agent for the current tax bill and the most recent assessment, and model a tax increase, not just a maintenance increase.

Ask about the underlying mortgage. It was consolidated and extended to $1,250,000 in May 2017. Get the current balance, rate and maturity, and ask what the board's plan is at maturity.

Landmark constraints apply here even though they do not apply next door. This lot is in the Tribeca South Historic District; 108 Duane Street on the same block is not designated. Window, storefront, skylight and other exterior alterations generally require LPC approval before the relevant DOB permit; some maintenance is exempt and eligible visible work can receive staff approval.

Run the numbers on the real figures. Use the Co-op Board Qualification Calculator once you have the financing ceiling and liquidity standard in writing, and the Renovation Cost Calculator against a scope your architect has reviewed.

Lead with the 1859 date and the documentation behind it. LPC's building database carries this building at 1859–60 by James H. Giles on Trinity Church ground. That is a far better story than PLUTO's 1915, and it is verifiable.

Lead second with the closed certificate of occupancy. A final C of O issued in November 2019 at R-2 occupancy for eleven units resolves the question that hangs over most legalized Tribeca lofts. Say so plainly and have the document ready.

Be ready for the tax question. A buyer's attorney will find the tax-to-income ratio in the financials. Better to explain it in advance — it is a function of a small building carrying a Tribeca assessment with no commercial income to offset it — than to have it surface as a surprise.

Price the configuration. Penthouse duplex, combined apartment, ground-floor-plus-cellar and standard half-floor are four different products in an eleven-unit building. A building average will mislead.

If you're considering 74 Reade Street, also evaluate:

• 66 Reade Street — the neighbor on the same tax block, likewise inside the Tribeca South Historic District
• 108 Duane Street — also block 150, but a condominium and not designated; the clearest illustration of how the district boundary cuts this block
• 57 Reade Street — Reade Street building across the street; compare its construction, scale and unit plans separately
• 97 Reade Street — Reade Street loft conversion a block west
• 100 Reade Street — the western end of the same corridor
• 134 Duane Street — small Duane Street loft cooperative
• 142 Duane Street — Duane Street loft building of similar unit count
• 87 Chambers Street — Chambers Street loft conversion one block south
• 65 Worth Street — Worth Street loft building
• 52 Thomas Street — boutique Tribeca loft alternative
• 9 White Street — small-scale Tribeca loft cooperative to the north