817 West End Avenue (Bennington Corners)

The building holds the corner of West End Avenue and West 100th Street and is addressed on both — 815–817 West End Avenue and 300–304 West 100th Street. PLUTO's choice of the West 100th Street address for the tax lot is why the building can appear to be missing from avenue-based data pulls; it is not, and the city's own geocoder resolves both addresses to BIN 1057091.

The West End Avenue elevation is the designed primary façade: a rusticated stone base with a granite stoop and a two-story columned entrance surround, a round-arched doorway with high-relief spandrel carving, a Greek-key molding at the third story, flared white-brick and decorated terra-cotta lintels through the eighth, elaborated lintels at the ninth, a cornice above the tenth, and terra-cotta window surrounds with carved spandrels through the twelfth. The parapet carries the peacocks. The North Facade — the West 100th Street side — is also designed, and is organized as two pavilions flanking a light court, a plan device that gives interior apartments genuine windows rather than shafts.

That light court explains the unit mix. The A through E lines are the principal residences, running to roughly 2,224 square feet at the largest, with a median around 1,486. The AA, BB, CC, DD and EE lines are the smaller court-facing apartments — several under 600 square feet — and one unit lot on the roll carries only 150 square feet. A penthouse of about 391 square feet sits at the top, and the thirteenth story that PLUTO and the Department of Finance report reflects a penthouse-level extension filed with the Department of Buildings in October 2006, the year before the conversion. LPC's designation report counts twelve stories and describes the original building.

Because the building was substantially rent-regulated at conversion and remains partly so, the condition of the interiors varies more than in a conventional conversion. Apartment-level alteration filings are frequent and scattered across the 2010s and 2020s. Some residences were renovated by purchasers; others have been under regulated tenancy for decades. Nothing about a floor plan predicts what is behind the door.

The lot is a designated contributing building in the Riverside–West End Historic District Extension II. That designation was calendared in November 2010 and took effect on June 23, 2015, and it is confirmed at the lot level in the Landmarks Preservation Commission's own designated-and-calendared database rather than inferred from PLUTO's histdist field. The building's Department of Buildings filings switch from landmark flag "N" to "Y" beginning in 2016, exactly as expected.

The practical consequence is unusually direct at this building. The signature exterior element — the terra-cotta parapet with the peacock plaques — is also the element requiring the most capital attention. In September 2023 the association contracted for parapet reconstruction and exterior repairs at a total cost of roughly $2.04 million, with Walter B. Melvin Architects retained to oversee and monitor the work; the same office filed the façade and masonry alteration with the Department of Buildings in August 2023, and scaffold filings followed in 2024. Work of that kind on a designated façade proceeds under LPC permit, which lengthens timelines and constrains materials and detailing. Anyone buying here should read the current status of that contract, not the historical description of it.

An earlier Local Law 11 contract dating to April 2017 was completed and paid in full — roughly $582,000 including change orders — and a chimney replacement of roughly $257,000 was completed by the end of 2022.

The building is staffed under the Local 32BJ agreement with an attended lobby and a live-in superintendent, and runs a plain service program: laundry room, storage bins, cable billed through the association. There is no garage, no fitness center, no roof access and no central air; window air conditioners are installed, winterized, removed and reinstalled by staff on a published seasonal fee schedule for units of 10,000 BTU or less.

The capital posture deserves a careful read, and the audited financial statements on file are explicit about it. The board raised common charges by 7.0 percent effective January 1, 2022, 4.724 percent effective January 1, 2023, and 8.0 percent effective January 1, 2024. It has also run a continuous annual assessment to replenish reserves — $195,673 for 2022, $208,073 for 2023, and $263,660 beginning in 2024. Notwithstanding those assessments, the reserve fund stood at under $7,000 at December 31, 2023, having been drawn down from roughly $227,000 a year earlier to fund façade work, and the association carried a members' deficit.

The building funds capital work with debt. In April 2023 the association obtained a two-year non-revolving line of credit of up to $4,000,000, converting to a ten-year term loan at 5.5 percent with principal and interest payments beginning May 2025 and maturity on April 15, 2035. The facility is secured by a perfected security interest in association property and future income, requires a $200,000 restricted deposit and a minimum debt-service ratio, and carries prepayment penalties on refinancing. Roughly $908,000 was drawn at the end of 2023, against a $2.04 million parapet contract signed that September.

The auditors also record that the association has not commissioned a reserve study, so there is no engineering estimate of remaining useful lives or future replacement costs. In a designated 1909 building carrying a term loan to 2035 and a live parapet reconstruction, that absence is itself a diligence item. Ask for the current drawn balance on the facility, the completion status and final cost of the parapet contract, the current assessment schedule, and the current reserve balance — not the 2023 figures reproduced here.

Ownership form: Condominium. Purchases close through the standard right-of-first-refusal mechanism rather than a cooperative board approval.

Pets: Permitted. The house rules on file govern leashing and cleanup in common areas and do not prohibit animals.

Subletting: Permitted, with an application to the managing agent, a processing fee and a credit-check fee, a six-month minimum lease term and an express prohibition on short-term rentals. House rules must be attached as an addendum to every lease.

Pied-à-terre, LLC, trust and foreign ownership: Permitted under the standard condominium framework.

Transfer fee: Profit-based and payable to the association — 10 percent, 5 percent or 3 percent of profit depending on whether the contract of sale is entered in the first, second, or third-or-later year of ownership, with profit measured net of a broker's commission capped at 6 percent of the sale price. Related-party and sponsor transfers excepted. Because the fee is charged on profit rather than on price, its cost varies enormously with holding period and basis; model it on the specific unit.

Alterations: Plans for renovation, plumbing and electrical work must be submitted in writing to the managing agent and the building's architect for review and approval before work begins. In-unit garbage disposals are prohibited, radiators may be replaced or relocated only by the building, and floors must be carpeted or covered to at least 80 percent of the area of each room outside kitchens, pantries, baths and closets. Exterior alterations are additionally subject to LPC jurisdiction.

Smoking: Prohibited throughout all common areas indoors and outdoors, including hallways, lobby, stairs, laundry, courtyards, cellars and roof, and within 25 feet of entrances, air intakes and operable windows. Smoking inside a residence is permitted only if smoke does not migrate.

Real estate taxes: No abatement of any kind appears on the residential unit lots on any roll from FY2011 through FY2027. Underwrite full unabated taxes and run True Monthly Carrying Cost analysis against the current bill.

Recent sales

Recent closings at this building, curated by The Roebling Team research desk. 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. Most recent trades (2026) cleared a median $620/sf across 1 sale. Median listing discount 2.2% 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 1-01888-7503) 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; square footage from recorded condo declarations and offering plans.

Confirm the sponsor block's current posture. Twenty-four residences moved as a single block in December 2025. Ask who controls them now, how many are occupied by regulated tenants, whether that owner is current on common charges, and how the block votes.

Read the financials, not the summary. Reserve balance, drawn balance on the credit facility, the assessment currently in force, and the final cost and completion status of the parapet contract. All four have moved since the last audited year on file.

Understand the transfer fee before you buy, not before you sell. A profit-based fee of 10, 5 or 3 percent behaves nothing like a flat flip tax, and it is the association's fee, not the sponsor's.

Exterior work is LPC work. Windows, the stoop, the areaway, the entrance and the parapet are all regulated. Budget time as well as money for anything that touches the outside.

Do not confuse this building with its neighbours. Tax block 1888 carries four separate condominiums — this one at lot 7503, plus 318 West 100th Street at lot 7501, 314 West 100th Street at lot 7502, and 270 Riverside Drive (the Glen Cairn) at lot 7504. Each has its own recorded declaration, its own board and its own common charges. They share a block and nothing else.

Expect the PLUTO address to read "300 West 100 Street." That is the same building. So is 815 West End Avenue.

Lead with the structure, not the finishes. Prewar Neville & Bagge architecture inside a designated historic district, with condominium closing mechanics, is the argument the surrounding cooperatives cannot make.

Get ahead of the sponsor block. A sophisticated buyer's counsel will find the December 2025 bulk transfer in ACRIS within an hour. Presenting it, with a current answer on occupancy and arrears, is far better than letting it surface late.

Model the transfer fee into the net. On a long-held apartment with low basis, a profit-based fee is a material number and should be in the seller's net sheet from the first pricing conversation.

Have the capital story ready. The parapet contract, the credit facility and the assessment schedule are the three questions every buyer's attorney will ask. Answer them with documents.

If you're considering 817 West End Avenue, also evaluate:

• 801 West End Avenue — the architectural twin by Neville & Bagge at the other corner of the same block; a 1980 cooperative rather than a condominium, and the cleanest illustration of how much tenure changes the product
• 270 Riverside Drive — the Glen Cairn, a 2016 non-eviction condominium conversion of a 1910 building on the same tax block; the closest possible comparison on vintage, district and conversion type
• 825 West End Avenue — Emery Roth's 1928 building converted to condominium in 1992, directly across West 100th Street; the nearest condominium alternative
• 845 West End Avenue — Schwartz & Gross, 1926, converted to condominium in 2010; 88 residences and a later, cleaner conversion
• 780 West End Avenue — The Terra Cotta, a George & Edward Blum building of 1912 converted to condominium in 1988; the ornament-forward alternative further south
• 789 West End Avenue — Manhattan Place, another Neville & Bagge building, 1915, converted to cooperative in 1981
• 840 West End Avenue — West End Hall, a 38-residence George F. Pelham cooperative of 1904; boutique prewar scale nearby
• 264 Riverside Drive — The Riverview, a George F. Pelham cooperative of 1908–1910 facing the park
• 285 Riverside Drive — a Rosario Candela cooperative of 1926; the park-front alternative at a higher tier