838 Fifth Avenue
838 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10065
BBL 1013797504 · BIN 1041101
- Year built
- 1951
- Type
- Condominium
- Units
- 18
- Floors
- 12
Every recorded sale at this building, 2005–2025
Price-per-square-foot over time, the line- and floor-premium curves, and every recorded sale.
- Median $/sf
- $2,493
- Listing discount
- 5.2%
- Recorded sales
- 12
- On record
- 2005–2025
Own an apartment here? See what it would sell for.
A Private Pricing Opinion — what your apartment at 838 Fifth Avenue 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.
838 Fifth Avenue is one of the most exclusive condominiums on Central Park — a limestone building with full park frontage at East 65th Street, converted in 1999 into a collection of predominantly full-floor residences. Its distinction is threefold: an unimpeachable Fifth Avenue address opposite the Central Park Zoo, floor-through layouts of roughly 5,400 to 5,500 square feet that live like grand prewar apartments, and a condominium ownership structure — unusual at this rarefied altitude of the avenue, where the cooperative form dominates.
The building's origin story reinforces its prestige. It began life around 1950 as an 11-story limestone office building designed by Harry M. Prince for the Union of American Hebrew Congregations — the "House of Living Judaism," carrying "Love Thy Neighbor As Thyself" on its façade. In the late 1990s a partnership led by The Athena Group, with investor A. Alfred Taubman, acquired and reimagined the structure, engaging Beyer Blinder Belle to convert it to residential use, absorbing the adjoining 2 East 65th Street parcel and adding a floor to bring the building to twelve stories.
Architecture and building operations
838 Fifth Avenue is a twelve-story, limestone-clad building presenting a restrained postwar façade with broad windows, Juliet balconies on its mid-block wing, and a gently curved roofline crowned by a gilded cupola over the penthouse. The 1999 conversion configured the building around large full-floor spreads of roughly 5,400 to 5,500 square feet, supported by separately deeded storage rooms and private wine cellars — features that recur in the building's individual unit sales and underscore its condominium form. It sits within the Upper East Side Historic District. Operations: 24-hour doorman with separate around-the-clock security staff, an elegant lobby, a fitness room, a commercial laundry room, and an emergency generator — a high service ratio appropriate to the scale of its residences.
Policy framework
- Type: Condominium
- Pets: Permitted
- Pied-à-terre: Permitted
- Subletting: Permitted
- Financing: Standard condominium LTV
- LLC/trust/foreign buyers: All permitted
- Right of first refusal: Procedural only
Local Law 97
- 2024–2029 annual penalty
- $70,733/yr
- 2030–2034 annual penalty
- $121,650/yr
- Per unit / month range
- $327 – $563
- Modeled exposure split equally across 18 units (the city tax-lot count). Not an assessed amount; co-op shareholders are typically charged by share allocation.
Source: NYC LL84 benchmarking and PLUTO · The Roebling Research Library. City record last verified September 2026.
See full Local Law 97 analysis — emissions history, scenarios, methodology →Facade safety — Local Law 11
The latest available FISP filing classified the facade as Safe — no repairs were required at that inspection. Facade inspections run on a fixed five-year cycle; future inspection, repair, and any assessment decisions remain building-specific.
How to read this, and where it comes from
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. City record last verified September 2026.
Management & transfer contacts
- Notable fees
- Application Processing Fee $700; Move In/Out $1,500 each; Closing Fee $750; Working Capital Contribution = 6 months common charges
Recent sales
Recent closings 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.
| Date | Unit | Apartment | Price | PPSF | vs. Ask |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 28, 2021 | 10 | 3 BR · 3.5 BA · 4,522 sf | $11,273,163 | $2,493/sf | off-mkt |
| Jul 10, 2014 | 8 | 3 BR · 5,416 sf | $31,861,500 | $5,883/sf | off-mkt |
| Jul 10, 2014 | 1C | 300 sf | $1,138,500 | $3,795/sf | off-mkt |
| Nov 24, 2009 | 9 | 3 BR · 4,552 sf | $22,500,000 | $4,943/sf | -8.2% |
| Jan 30, 2007 | 9 | 3 BR · 4,524 sf | $15,800,000 | $3,492/sf | off-mkt |
| Mar 3, 2006 | 10 | 3 BR · 4,522 sf | $13,500,000 | $2,985/sf | +0.0% |
| Apr 21, 2005 | 8 | 3 BR · 5,423 sf | $21,000,000 | $3,872/sf | -2.3% |
| Jan 18, 2005 | 9 | 3 BR · 4,524 sf | $13,600,000 | $3,006/sf | off-mkt |
Market read. $/sf is measured on the latest sales with reliable square footage (2021): a median $2,493/sf (recorded) across 1 sale. The building has traded as recently as 2025. Median listing discount 5.2% from the last ask — a recurring negotiation gap worth pricing into any offer or listing strategy.
The retrade record
Lines that have traded more than once in the public record — the building’s appreciation arc, apartment by apartment.
Full closing history with price-per-square-foot over time, the complete retrade record, and every line that has traded.
Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 1-01379-7504). 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 from recorded condo declarations and offering plans.
Buying here? Condo closing costs with a mortgage typically run 3 to 6% of the price. See NYC co-op and condo closing costs, line by line.
Keep up with 838 Fifth Avenue and its market
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Comparable buildings
- 1045 Fifth Avenue — nearby Fifth Avenue / Central Park peer
- 1115 Fifth Avenue — nearby Fifth Avenue peer
- 1120 Fifth Avenue — nearby Fifth Avenue peer
- 1 East 66th Street — Candela 1947; nearby Fifth-and-66th peer
- 2 East 70th Street — Candela 1927-28; nearby Lenox Hill peer
Sources: The Roebling Research Library (offering plans, house rules, financial statements, board minutes, internal transaction records); NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers; publicly recorded NYC building data.
More Fifth Avenue buildings
- 820 Fifth Avenue — 1916 co-op by Starrett & Van Vleck
- 825 Fifth Avenue — 1926 co-op by J.E.R. Carpenter
- 834 Fifth Avenue — 1931 co-op by Rosario Candela
- 845 Fifth Avenue — 1920 co-op by J.E.R. Carpenter
- 857 Fifth Avenue — 1963 co-op by Sylvan and Robert Bien
- 860 Fifth Avenue — 1949 co-op by Sylvan Bien
The neighborhood
For the full corridor — architecture, transit, and pricing across Fifth Avenue — read The Roebling Team Guide to Fifth Avenue.
How to read the facts on this page. Items attributed to an offering plan describe the building as it was offered at that filing — unit mix, square footage, the amenity program as planned. They are not a statement about how the building operates today. Tax and compliance figures are sourced separately to current City records and carry their own dates. House rules, staffing and fee policy can change by board resolution without any public filing: treat every policy line here as a starting point for diligence and confirm it with the managing agent. Where this page compares one building or neighborhood to another, that is our analysis of the recorded record — it names the measure, the period and the sample it rests on, and it is an observation about medians rather than a prediction about any particular apartment.
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