923 Fifth Avenue

The building rises twenty stories above grade, including the penthouse level, over a basement and cellar. The elevator and directory numbering runs one through twenty plus a penthouse and skips thirteen; the Department of Buildings treats the basement as the first floor. Both conventions are in the record, which is why the building is described as twenty stories in some sources and twenty-one in others.

The residential plan as originally offered gives an unusually clear picture of what the building was designed to be. The 1982 plan enumerates thirteen one-bedroom apartments, twenty-two one-or-two-bedroom apartments, twenty-six two-bedroom apartments, five two-bedroom duplexes, and twenty-three two-bedroom apartments with maids' rooms contained within them, alongside six free-standing maids' units in the building's service tier and five commercial units at the base. Residential area totals roughly 128,600 square feet against roughly 148,600 square feet of building area, on a 14,800-square-foot lot.

Three things follow. First, this was built as a two-bedroom building. The duplexes and the combined lines are the exceptions, not the rule, and the largest apartments in the building today are almost all the product of later combinations rather than original design. Second, the free-standing maids' units are a live diligence item: the plan gives their owners exclusive use in common of the associated bathrooms and hallway, and it contemplates their combination into larger units. Where they have been absorbed, the common-interest arithmetic and the tax lots may not read cleanly. Third, the difference between the 92 residential units offered, the 93 residential units described in the FY2020 audit, and the 96 residential units carried in PLUTO is real and should be resolved on the specific unit rather than assumed away.

The corner balconies are the building's signature and its most-altered feature; many have been enclosed over the years. Because the building sits within the Upper East Side Historic District, any change to a masonry opening, a railing or a window is subject to Landmarks review. The condominium operates under an LPC-approved master plan for window replacement, and the Commission has heard applications from this address on more than one occasion — a 2016 application to modify masonry openings and install railings was approved with modifications after a public hearing, and a further application followed in 2018. A buyer planning to open up a window line, glaze a balcony or change a railing should assume a Landmarks process and should read the master plan before assuming what is permitted.

923 Fifth is staffed to the standard the avenue expects. The offering plan's schedule recorded eighteen employees at conversion, including a superintendent, nine elevator attendants, three doormen and a relief doorman-elevator attendant; the building was attended twenty-four hours a day. Two passenger elevators and one service elevator serve the residential floors. Staff are covered by the Local 32BJ collective bargaining agreement, and wages and union benefits are by a wide margin the largest expense in the budget — roughly $1.68 million of a $2.38 million operating cost in the most recent audited year on file, or about seventy percent.

The historical audited statements on file reported no underlying mortgage; they do not establish the current debt position or a conservative financial posture solely from ownership form. Total liabilities at the most recent year-end on file were under half a million dollars, essentially accounts payable and alteration security deposits. The capital improvement fund stood above $1.0 million at that year-end, up from roughly $873,000 the year before, and those statements described a board policy of maintaining a floor in that fund equal to three months of operating expenses. Recent capital work recorded in the statements includes plumbing upgrades, an elevator upgrade, exterior restoration and renovation of the resident manager's apartment.

Two qualifications belong alongside that. First, the governing documents do not require the accumulation of reserves, and the auditors note that no reserve study has been performed — so there is no engineering basis on file for judging whether the fund is adequate to the building's remaining useful lives. Second, the board did levy a $185,000 special assessment, approved in 2018 and collected over twelve months beginning January 2019, specifically to replenish the capital improvement fund. That assessment has run its course, but it is the pattern to watch: with no reserve study and a modest fund, large work could again be funded by assessment, or by maintenance increases or borrowing.

The statements on file also disclose one pending legal matter — a unit owner's damage claim arising from an alleged leak and an alleged failure to maintain, which the board denies and which is being defended by the condominium's insurance carrier. It is the ordinary kind of claim for a seventy-five-year-old building and is disclosed here because it appears in the audited statements; ask for the current status.

Storage in the cellar is licensed to unit owners rather than deeded, and it generates a small revenue line. There are fewer lockers than apartments. Confirm whether a license runs with the specific unit before contract.

Board approval: None in the cooperative sense. The board holds a right of first refusal under Article VIII of the by-laws and has twenty days from receipt of a complete notice package to exercise or waive it; the waiver certificate is what the title company will require at closing.

The application, nonetheless, is a full one. The current transfer requirements on file call for a purchase application, credit authorization, executed contract, statement of assets and liabilities with verification, the most recent tax return with schedules, a loan commitment where financing, employment or CPA verification, a landlord or managing-agent reference, three personal references, two financial references, a designation of agent for service, and primary-residence verification. Budget the same preparation time you would for a cooperative package even though the standard of review is entirely different.

Financing: No restriction under the plan on file. Lender requirements, not house rules, set the ceiling here.

Pied-à-terre, LLC, trust and foreign purchase: Confirm each use and ownership structure in the current declaration, bylaws and house rules. Condominium tenure does not establish why buyers choose the building or whether they would qualify for another board.

Subletting: Permitted, subject to the board's right of first refusal on leases and to the house rules. Lease requirements are maintained by the managing agent and should be requested if the apartment is being bought for rental.

Pets: Cats and small dogs permitted with written consent, revocable at the board's discretion. Pets must be carried or leashed in public areas and large dogs are restricted to the designated elevator.

Professional use: The plan notes that the law at the time permitted a resident to use up to twenty-five percent of the floor area of a residential unit for permitted professional purposes, subject to a cap. Current zoning allows a home occupation of up to 49 percent of the floor area and 1,000 square feet, subject to use restrictions; the building's own documents may be stricter. This is a genuine feature of the building for buyers who need a home office with client access; confirm the current position with the managing agent.

Transfer costs: The purchaser's working capital contribution — the greater of $450 per 0.01 percent of common interest or two and one-half percent of the price — plus $2,000 move-in and $2,000 move-out fees, an application processing fee and per-applicant credit report fees. Model all of it before you set your offer.

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.

Market read. Most recent trades (2026 to date) cleared a median $2,614/sf (floor-adjusted) across 3 sales. Floor-adjusted means each sale is restated to a constant mix of floors, so the figure can differ from the plain median of the sales listed above. Median listing discount 4.9% 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 1-01388-7501; each condominium apartment is its own tax lot). 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.

Model the transfer cost before you model the apartment. Under the reported formula, the purchaser's working capital contribution is at least two and one-half percent of the purchase price, and more if the common-interest calculation is larger; confirm the current amendment and the unit's common interest. Run it, together with the mansion tax and the standard condominium closing costs, through the Buyer Closing Cost Calculator before you set a number.

Prepare a cooperative-grade package anyway. There is no board approval, but there is a full application. Assemble financials, references and verification early; incomplete packages are returned.

Read the Landmarks master plan if you intend to renovate. The building is inside the Upper East Side Historic District and operates under an LPC-approved window master plan. Balcony enclosures, railing changes and masonry openings are all Commission matters.

Reconcile the unit count and the maids' units. The plan, the audit and PLUTO disagree on how many residential units exist. Where an apartment incorporates a former maid's unit, confirm the tax lots, the common interest and the certificate of occupancy.

Ask for the reserve position and the capital plan. No reserve study was identified in the historical audited statements reviewed; confirm whether one has since been completed. Request the most recent audited statement, the current budget, the last two years of minutes and the building's Local Law 11 status.

Lead with condominium tenure. A condominium on the Central Park block frontage has no co-op board admission; purchases run through the condominium's application and right-of-first-refusal process. Confirm financing, trust, entity and foreign-purchase rules in the current declaration, bylaws and house rules before marketing them.

Disclose the working capital contribution up front. It is a material closing cost to include in the transaction analysis; the file reviewed does not establish its frequency as a cause of renegotiation. Put the formula in front of the buyer's attorney at contract, not at closing.

Price the exposure and the condition, not the building. A renovated park-facing line and an original rear line are different products. Comparables drawn from the wrong half of the building will cost you time.

Closing estimate. Thirty to forty-five days from contract, subject to the twenty-day right-of-first-refusal window and the delivery of the waiver certificate.

If you're considering 923 Fifth Avenue, also evaluate:

• 860 Fifth Avenue — Sylvan Bien's 1949 parkfront house, the building's closest architectural sibling; cooperative rather than condominium
• 1049 Fifth Avenue — the former Adams Hotel, now one of the few other true condominiums on the Fifth Avenue frontage
• 920 Fifth Avenue — J.E.R. Carpenter's 1922 cooperative on the corner directly to the south
• 927 Fifth Avenue — Warren and Wetmore's 1917 cooperative on the corner directly to the north
• 930 Fifth Avenue — Emery Roth's 1940 cooperative; the last prewar generation on the avenue
• 936 Fifth Avenue — 1955 postwar cooperative one block north; the nearest contemporary in vintage
• 980 Fifth Avenue — Paul Resnick and H.F. Green's 1966 white-brick cooperative; the later postwar Fifth Avenue product
• 785 Fifth Avenue — Emery Roth & Sons' 1963 parkfront cooperative at 60th Street
• 900 Fifth Avenue — 1960 cooperative three blocks south; the same postwar parkfront proposition
• Manhattan House — 1950 Mayer & Whittlesey landmark converted to condominium; the other major postwar Upper East Side condominium option
• The Carlyle — Sylvan Bien's Madison Avenue tower; the architect's best-known New York building and a different ownership structure entirely