- Year built
- 1904
- Type
- Cooperative
- Landmark
- Designated
840 West End Avenue — named West End Hall — is exactly the kind of building that made upper West End Avenue one of the most quietly desirable addresses in Manhattan: a turn-of-the-century masonry apartment house, generously scaled, designed by an architect who shaped the avenue itself. It was completed in 1904 to designs by George F. Pelham, who was among the most prolific apartment-house architects on West End Avenue and put up roughly a dozen buildings along the corridor. The building anchors the northeast corner of West 101st Street, a low-rise, full-block stretch where the avenue still reads as the dignified residential boulevard its early developers intended.
The architecture is the calling card. Pelham gave the building rusticated first and sixth stories, brick quoins at the corners, a columned portico with paired Ionic columns supporting a balcony, segmental-arched windows at the fifth floor, and a pressed-metal cornice with a swag-and-triglyph frieze — the full Beaux-Arts vocabulary, executed in the durable masonry that has aged into the neighborhood rather than against it. Six stories and only 38 apartments make it a low-density, light-filled building of a type that simply isn't built anymore.
For buyers, the appeal is concrete: a pre-war corner cooperative with large, well-proportioned layouts, protected by historic-district designation, one short walk from Riverside Park and within easy reach of the Broadway shopping spine and the 1/2/3 trains at 96th and 103rd Streets. It is the value end of the pre-war West Side — character and space without a Riverside Drive premium.
Architecture and unit composition
West End Hall is a six-story Renaissance Revival building organized around a single core, which keeps the apartment count low and the layouts broad. Pelham's plan favored the gracious room counts of early-1900s family apartments: high ceilings, deep entry galleries, separate dining rooms, and the hard-plaster walls, picture moldings, and hardwood floors that define the era. Corner units benefit from the building's exposures on both West End Avenue and West 101st Street; many homes retain original detail, and several have been combined or gut-renovated over the decades since the 1989 conversion.
At 38 residences across roughly 46,600 square feet, the building averages well over 1,200 square feet per apartment — a generous figure that reflects its pre-war family-flat origins rather than the chopped layouts common in later conversions. The masonry envelope and modest height mean quiet, stable, light-rich homes with the thick walls that pre-war buyers prize.
Building operations
840 West End Avenue runs as a traditional, well-kept pre-war cooperative. The building maintains a resident superintendent, a part-time attended entrance, central laundry, and private storage. As a 38-unit co-op, monthly maintenance covers building staff, heat and hot water, real estate taxes attributable to each unit, and the upkeep of the masonry façade and historic-district-compliant exterior. Buildings of this size and vintage on West End Avenue are typically self-managed or run by a boutique managing agent under an attentive resident board, with a culture oriented toward long-term, owner-occupant ownership.
As a cooperative, the building is governed by a board of directors that reviews purchase applications and conducts interviews; prospective purchasers should expect a standard co-op board package and financing review. Pet, sublet, and renovation policies are set by the board and house rules; buyers should request the current rules and financials as part of due diligence.
Local Law 97
- 2024–2029 annual penalty
- $0 (under cap)
- 2030–2034 annual penalty
- $1,092/yr
- Per unit / month range
- $0 – $2
Facade safety — Local Law 11
The facade passed its last inspection with no required repairs — nothing to budget for here, and no facade assessment on the horizon for roughly five years.
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
Recent transfers at this building, curated by The Roebling Team research desk. Apartment-level facts are independently verified before publishing; sale prices reflect the recorded transfer amount at the NYC Department of Finance.
| Date | Unit | Apartment | Price | PPSF |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 23, 2014 | — | 47,832 sf | $37,350,000 | $781/sf |
Market read. Most recent trades (2014) cleared a median $781/sf across 1 sale.
Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 1-01873-0001) 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 on co-ops is not officially recorded, figures shown are approximate.
What to know if you’re buying
This is a pre-war cooperative, so plan for a co-op purchase: a board package, financials, references, and an interview. Maintenance covers heat, hot water, staff, and the building's share of real estate taxes; ask for the most recent financial statements, the reserve fund position, and any assessment history, since masonry and cornice maintenance on a 1904 building is an ongoing capital item under historic-district rules.
The value case is the corridor itself. You are buying pre-war space — high ceilings, real walls, separate rooms — at a discount to the marquee avenues, one block from Riverside Park and within a few hundred yards of Broadway's groceries, restaurants, and the 1/2/3 subway. Confirm the building's current financing cap, sublet stance, and pet policy with the board's house rules; for a corner pre-war of this scale, the underwriting tends to be conservative and owner-occupant-focused, which protects long-term value.
What to know if you’re selling
The marketing story writes itself: a named Beaux-Arts corner building by a defining West End Avenue architect, in a protected historic district, with large pre-war layouts and Riverside Park at the doorstep. Lead with the room count, the light, the original detail, and the address's quiet prestige.
Price against the upper-West-End pre-war cooperative set, not the Riverside Drive or Central Park West trophy tier — buyers here are choosing space and character over a park-front premium. Well-renovated and combined units, and any home with corner exposures, should be positioned at the top of the building's range. A clean board package and current financials shorten the path to closing in a co-op sale.
Comparable buildings
If you're weighing 840 West End Avenue, also consider these nearby pre-war West Side cooperatives:
- 855 West End Avenue (885 West End Avenue) — pre-war West End Avenue cooperative nearby
- 890 West End Avenue — pre-war corner cooperative on the same corridor
- 895 West End Avenue — upper West End Avenue pre-war peer
- 305 West 98th Street — pre-war cooperative a few blocks north
- 255 West 98th Street — Gaetano Ajello pre-war cooperative nearby
The Roebling Team at West End Hall
The Roebling Team at Compass specializes in the Upper West Side, West End Avenue, Riverside Drive, and the broader pre-war Manhattan market. We publish this profile because buyers and sellers at boutique pre-war cooperatives deserve building-specific intelligence — the architecture, the board posture, the room counts, and where the pricing sits within the corridor.
If you're considering a purchase or sale at West End Hall, a 30-minute consultation is the right starting point.
Get the full picture on this building.
Current availability including off-market, the full comp set, and the board & financials read most listings don't show.