889 Broadway (The Gorham Building)

Kendall's building is a corner block of pink brick trimmed in terra cotta and Belleville sandstone under a steep slate roof with iron cresting — the Queen Anne vocabulary near full volume, on a corner that gives it two long elevations. DOB's facade filings describe a steel frame with masonry walls, consistent with the 1893 and 1912–13 campaigns having reworked substantial parts of the structure behind the historic face. The lot runs about 55 feet on Broadway and 108 feet on East 19th Street and the building covers essentially all of it, but lot dimensions do not establish apartment proportions; verify layout and actual exposures from unit plans.

Seventeen apartments sit on nine floors above the retail base. The recorded designations — A and B pairs on most floors, a C line at the base, a penthouse at the top — describe roughly two apartments per floor, which puts these in the half-floor loft range. Ceiling heights, window sizes and column spacing are inherited from an 1880s commercial frame and the 1977 conversion did not chase them out. The penthouse sits above the original cornice line but its position alone does not establish the reason for the eight-versus-nine-story discrepancy; reconcile approved drawings and the current certificate of occupancy.

The ground floor and mezzanine are retail owned by the cooperative, expanded in 2010 when DOB job 120392173 converted a first-floor apartment into a second store. That is a real economic feature of the corporation rather than a detail: commercial income in a seventeen-unit building carries meaningful weight against maintenance, and a buyer should ask what the leases are and when they expire.

This is a small, self-contained house rather than a serviced one — a full-time superintendent, a video intercom, a keyed elevator opening into the apartments, and a landscaped roof deck. No doorman, no gym, no garage. Assess the adequacy and cost of staffing from current schedules, payroll and budget; seventeen units alone do not establish affordability or the right service level.

The operating story that matters is the capital one, and it is public. The building filed SWARMP in the 2017 facade cycle, moved to UNSAFE in February 2023, and has stayed UNSAFE through filings in December 2024 and March 2026. In parallel LPC signed off in November 2025 on stone repair, repointing and replacement of deteriorated architectural features, and in June 2026 on sidewalk work. The filings point to a substantial exterior restoration on a landmark facade; confirm its scope, schedule and completion with the board and recent engineering reports.

We hold no audited financial statements, no board communications and no offering plan for this building in either library, which is unusual for a building of this profile and is stated here rather than papered over. Reserves, any assessment, the status of any underlying mortgage, and the budgeted cost of the facade program are all unknown to us and all knowable to your attorney.

Ownership form: Cooperative. Buyers acquire shares in 889 Realty Inc. and a proprietary lease, and are approved by the board after a package review and an interview. The corporation also owns the ground-floor commercial space.

The policy stack is not published. No offering plan, amended plan, proprietary lease, house rules or financial statement for 889 Broadway was located in either library. The financing ceiling, the post-closing liquidity expectation, the sublet policy and any sublet fee, the flip tax and who pays it, the pied-à-terre posture, and whether the board will approve a purchase in trust or through an entity are undocumented in any source we can stand behind. We will not guess at them. Request them in writing from the managing agent before making an offer, and treat any number quoted verbally as unverified.

Real estate taxes: No exemption or abatement on the lot in the FY2026 or FY2027 rolls; the 1979 and 1980 J-51 benefits expired around 1990–1991.

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 (2024): a median $1,119/sf (floor-adjusted) across 1 sale. The building has traded as recently as 2025. Median listing discount 3.0% 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 1-00848-0012). 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.

Start with the facade file, not the floor plan. The building has been UNSAFE since February 2023 and remained UNSAFE on the March 2026 filing. Ask the managing agent for the engineer's report, the scope and budget of the LPC-approved restoration, the funding plan, and whether an assessment has been levied or is contemplated. If those answers are not forthcoming in writing, that is itself information.

Assume nothing about the rules. No offering plan, proprietary lease or house rules for this building exists in either library. Financing ceiling, post-closing liquidity, sublet policy and fee, flip tax and payer, pied-à-terre and trust or entity purchase all have to come from the managing agent in writing. Run the Co-op Board Qualification Calculator once you have the real numbers, not before.

Understand what dual designation costs you. Individual landmark plus historic district means windows, storefronts, rooftop mechanicals, terraces and much interior alteration go to LPC first. The permit file shows the Commission grants certificates of no effect routinely — but on its schedule, not yours.

The zoning is manufacturing, and that is normal here. M1-5M is one of the manufacturing districts in which the Zoning Resolution permits residences under special provisions (Section 42-313). The use is legal and legalized; PLUTO's residential FAR of 0.00 for the lot alarms anyone reading city data cold, and should not.

It is not a loft-law building. The 1977 conversion carries a certificate of occupancy. There is no interim multiple dwelling status, no Loft Board jurisdiction, and no artist-certification condition — the apartments are Class A dwelling units in occupancy group J-2. Buyers comparing this to unlegalized loft stock elsewhere in the district are comparing two different legal animals.

Check the unit count against the shares. PLUTO says 17 residential units; the certificate of occupancy on the 2010 change-of-use job still says 18. The schedule of shares settles it.

Small building, small denominator. Seventeen apartments carry the elevator, the superintendent, the roof, the landmark facade and the sidewalk. Run the True Monthly Carrying Cost Calculator with a capital line in it.

Lead with the building's identity. This is the Gorham Building — an individually designated New York City landmark by Edward Hale Kendall, built for the Goelets in 1883–84, one of the earliest store-and-apartment buildings on Ladies' Mile. That provenance is documented in LPC's own records and no competing loft building on these blocks can claim it.

Get ahead of the facade. A buyer's attorney will pull the FISP record in the first week and find an UNSAFE status running since 2023. Presenting the LPC-approved scope, the engineer's report and the funding plan up front converts a discovery into a disclosed, quantified item.

Assemble the document package before listing. The reviewed materials do not establish all current policies. Supply the proprietary lease, house rules, current financials and capital plan early so buyers can assess them; missing documents do not establish a price discount or guarantee one disappears.

Position against the right comparable set. The condominium loft conversions on West 17th through West 21st Streets are a different product. The right frame is Ladies' Mile cooperative inventory, and the argument is landmark provenance, loft scale and commercial income against condominium flexibility.

Condition sells here. Loft plates in a nineteenth-century frame reward renovation and punish deferral. Run the Renovation Cost Calculator against the asking strategy before deciding whether to sell as-is.

If you're considering 889 Broadway, also evaluate:

• 32 West 20th Street — an eighteen-unit Ladies' Mile loft cooperative; the closest like-for-like on tenure, scale and district
• 112 East 19th Street (Ruggles House) — a 1913 office-and-loft building converted to cooperative; the nearest peer on the East 19th Street corridor
• 105 East 19th Street — a 1920 prewar cooperative a block east; the conventional apartment-house alternative
• 29 West 21st Street (Iron Lofts) — a six-unit Ladies' Mile loft condominium; the boutique condominium alternative inside the same district
• 31 West 21st Street — an eleven-unit full-floor loft condominium next door to it, also inside the district
• 12 West 18th Street (The Randolph) — an 1885 Ladies' Mile loft converted to condominium; the closest peer by vintage
• 15 West 17th Street — a ten-unit 1907 loft condominium in the district; smaller plates, condominium rules
• 21 West 20th Street — new construction inside the Ladies' Mile Historic District; a modern alternative whose prices require matched-sales comparison
• 15 Union Square West — the 1870 Tiffany building converted to condominium in 2008; the Union Square trophy conversion
• 42 East 20th Street (The Bullmoose) — an 1899 loft converted to condominium with its exact landmark designation to confirm