92 Remsen Street

A twenty-five-foot brick house of 1835, four storeys counting the mansard, entered at or near grade since the stoop's removal. The Commission's secondary designations — Eclectic style, stucco as a secondary material — describe a front that was reworked rather than restored: mansard slope and dormers at the top, later window and door treatment below, and the original Federal proportions still governing the openings underneath. It is a good building to look at twice.

Ten apartments in roughly 6,484 square feet average about 650 square feet, which puts the stock in the junior-one and one-bedroom range with likely larger homes at the garden and parlor levels. As in every converted Heights house of this generation, there is no line structure to compare: ceiling heights change floor to floor, the mansard storey has its own geometry and its own light, and the garden apartments face onto an exceptionally deep rear yard. Front rooms face north to Remsen Street; rear rooms face south into the block, which on a deep lot means real afternoon light rather than a light well.

Everything on the front is regulated fabric. On a house where the Commission has already recorded the loss of the original details, a restoration proposal — stoop, ironwork, cornice, sash — will be reviewed against that record, and the mansard's slate, flashing and dormers are their own recurring project.

92 Remsen Street Housing Corporation has run the house since the 1982 closing on the smallest available model: no elevator on record, no staff on record, and no outside managing agent, with the current HPD registration listing the registered agent at the building's own address. Ten shareholders running their own building holds the maintenance base down; it also means the audited statements, the reserve balance and the assessment history are the real measures of how the building has been kept.

The debt record is the headline. Across more than four decades of cooperative ownership the corporation has recorded a $15,000 facility in 1987, roughly $13,000 from the National Consumer Cooperative Bank's mortgage affiliate in 1994, and $140,000 from Emigrant Funding in 2004 — with nothing since. A ten-apartment corporation carrying that little underlying debt has almost certainly funded its capital work out of reserves and assessments, which is the healthier pattern but also the one that lands directly on shareholders. Ask what the last three capital cycles cost and how they were paid for.

The capital list for an 1835 brick house with a mansard is specific: the mansard roof itself, dormer flashing, façade and cornice work under FISP/LL11 with Landmarks review attached, party walls with Nos. 90 and 94, the retaining structures at the back of a very deep yard, and the age of the risers and heating plant.

One title item deserves naming. Alongside the December 1982 cooperative deed, ACRIS indexes a January 25, 1983 deed from 92 Co. to a separate entity against this same tax lot. Conversion-era filings of this kind are usually housekeeping — a correction, a partial release, a companion parcel — but the title report should explain it rather than list it.

Recent sales

Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 3-00253-0069) 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.

Read the assessment history first. A corporation with essentially no underlying debt since 2004 has been paying for capital work another way. Find out how much, how often, and what is queued next.

Ask the mansard question. The top storey is a nineteenth-century addition with its own roof, slope, dormers and flashing. Its condition and its last replacement date belong in your diligence file.

Have your title company explain the January 1983 deed. It is indexed against this lot and it postdates the cooperative closing. Almost certainly routine; get it in writing anyway.

Confirm what the rear yard is and who has it. Seventy feet of open ground behind a Heights house is a real asset; whether it is common or assigned to the garden apartments is a question for the proprietary lease.

Assume a walk-up. No elevator is recorded here.

Tell the Whitehouse-to-mansard story. An 1835 house with a named owner-developer in the LPC's file and a documented Second Empire remodelling is a listing that can say something specific and true. Most Remsen Street apartment listings cannot.

Sell the depth of the lot. Seventy feet of rear yard opening onto the Grace Court Alley block interior is the building's scarcest feature, and it is invisible from the street.

Lead with the balance sheet. Effectively unlevered, self-managed, ten shareholders. For a buyer's lender, that is a clean file.

Price against the district's converted houses, not the corridor. The comparable set is the Federal and Greek Revival stock on this stretch and around Grace Court — not the elevator buildings east of Henry Street.

If you're considering 92 Remsen Street, also evaluate:

• 100 Remsen Street — full-service prewar cooperative on the far side of the Henry Street corner; the service-model contrast a hundred feet away
• 76 Remsen Street — Slee & Bryson's 1922 cooperative on the same tax block; the purpose-built alternative
• 68 Remsen Street — H. I. Feldman's 1929 elevator cooperative, also on this block
• 60 Remsen Street — the 1955 cooperative at the Hicks Street corner of the same block; the postwar comparison
• 134 Remsen Street — ten-apartment cooperative on the Clinton Street end of Remsen; the closest peer in scale
• 44 Remsen Street — small cooperative on the harbor end of the same street
• 19 Grace Court — Sugarman & Berger's 1925 cooperative on the cul-de-sac immediately west
• 2 Grace Court — large elevator cooperative on the same cul-de-sac
• 205 Hicks Street — cooperative one block west; the same walk-up register on a quieter street