96 Schermerhorn Street (Boerum Court)
96 Schermerhorn Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201
Brooklyn Heights, Brooklyn
BBL 3002710047 · BIN 3002707
- Year built
- 1928
- Type
- Cooperative
- Units
- 105
- Floors
- 13
- Landmark
- No
- Subletting
- Board consent by resolution required (proprietary lease as filed, 1981); current limits unverified
- Pets
- Pet acknowledgment required in current purchase application; specific limits unverified
Compiled by The Roebling Research Desk from the building’s offering plan, amendments, and related building documents (primary source dated application requirements 2024; lease terms 1981 as filed). Reported and subject to confirmation. Board policies can change by amendment — confirm at the offer stage.
Boerum Court is Downtown Brooklyn's original adaptive-reuse co-op — a 1928 college tower converted to 105 apartments in 1981, a full generation before institutional conversions became the neighborhood's signature move. St. John's College built the tower at Schermerhorn Street and Boerum Place for its downtown Brooklyn campus, and the building spent its first half-century in academic use: the college's law school and professional divisions operated here, the plan's engineering description records a later lease to Brooklyn College, and St. John's consolidated its operations to Queens by 1972. Through the 1970s the tower sat boarded up while Downtown Brooklyn emptied out. When Boerum Court Associates filed its cooperative plan in September 1981 — with conversion architecture by Schuman, Lichtenstein, Claman & Efron, the firm that continues today as SLCE Architects — the project was an early bet that the civic blocks east of Court Street could support market-rate ownership housing. Closings ran through 1982, and the bet paid off decades before the Flatbush Avenue tower boom validated it at scale.
The institutional origin is the product's advantage. Classrooms, a gymnasium, and a cafeteria became apartments with ceiling heights running roughly 10 to 17 feet depending on floor, oversized window openings, and layout variety no purpose-built 1928 apartment house offers. The fireproof Class 1 construction and pared Collegiate-Gothic-into-Art-Deco massing, with setbacks at the upper floors, give the building a civic presence on its corner; the setback roofs at the twelfth and fourteenth floors were converted to private terraces for the adjoining apartments.
The location deserves honest framing, and rewards it. The 1981 marketing name — "The Tower in the Heights" — overstated matters then and would now: the building stands east of Court Street, outside the Brooklyn Heights Historic District, on a block it shares with courts and civic buildings, where Downtown Brooklyn, Boerum Hill, and the Heights meet. What the address actually delivers is one of the best transit positions in brownstone Brooklyn — Borough Hall and Jay Street-MetroTech's full menu of lines within a few blocks — with Brooklyn Heights two short blocks west, Boerum Hill's restaurant rows a few minutes south, and pricing that reflects the civic block rather than the historic district. For buyers priced out of the district's co-ops who want volume, light, and transit, that trade is the whole case, and it is a good one.
Architecture and unit composition
The plan allocated 68,700 shares across 104 offered apartments (the superintendent's unit 1A stayed unallocated, producing the 104/105 count), totaling 325 zoning rooms — a mix weighted toward studios and one-bedrooms with a meaningful complement of larger and terrace units at the setbacks. Because the conversion carved apartments out of institutional floor plates, lines do not repeat cleanly floor-to-floor: ceiling height, window scale, and proportion vary more within this building than in any purpose-built peer, and unit-level evaluation matters correspondingly more. The 1980–82 alteration re-windowed the building with double-glazed aluminum units, added two upgraded boilers, a compactor system, and rebuilt roofs; the twelfth- and fourteenth-floor setback roofs became private terraces for bordering apartments.
Building operations
Boerum Court Owners, Inc. has operated the building since the 1982 closings, currently with FirstService Residential New York as managing agent per the co-op's purchase application. The conversion budget staffed the building for round-the-clock door coverage — superintendent, handyman, porter, and four doormen under the 32B contract — and service level has remained central to the building's identity; current staffing should be confirmed at offer stage. Apartments are individually metered for electricity. The Roebling Research Library holds the two-part offering plan, amendments, bylaws, house rules, current purchase application requirements, and recent financial statements for the building.
Recent sales
The retrade record
Lines that have traded more than once in the public record — the building’s appreciation arc, apartment by apartment.
Recent transfers at this building, sourced from NYC Department of Finance records. Apartment-level detail (line, condition, asking-price context) verified upon consultation request.
| Date | Unit | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Jun 10, 2026 | PHC | $765,000 |
| May 22, 2026 | 8E | $760,000 |
| Jan 22, 2026 | 11F | $880,000 |
| Sep 26, 2025 | PHE | $535,000 |
| Mar 19, 2025 | 3G | $690,000 |
| Jan 15, 2025 | 8C | $1,060,000 |
Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 3-00271-0047) 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.
What to know if you’re buying
Evaluate the specific apartment, not the line. Institutional floor plates mean ceiling heights and proportions vary widely by floor and position — the difference between a 10-foot and a 15-foot ceiling in otherwise similar units is the difference between fine and extraordinary.
Price the location honestly, in your favor. You are buying the Downtown/Boerum Hill seam, not the historic district — that is precisely why the per-room price is what it is, with the Heights two blocks away and elite transit at the door.
Service is part of the maintenance. The building has carried full door staff since conversion; confirm current staffing and how it flows through the maintenance before comparing carrying costs against self-service walk-ups.
Confirm policy specifics early. Sublet limits, any flip tax, and financing minimums are board-level facts not stated in the public record; get them from management before offer.
What to know if you’re selling
Sell the volume. Ceiling height, window scale, and the St. John's provenance are the differentiators no nearby condo can copy; photograph accordingly and state the heights.
Frame the neighborhood forward. The honest pitch — Downtown convenience, Boerum Hill adjacency, Heights proximity, and the transit map — outperforms straining for a Heights label the block cannot support.
Anchor to the building's own comps. Boerum Court's recent trades, adjusted for ceiling height and terrace rights, price apartments more reliably than district co-op benchmarks that carry a different premium.
Have the application package ready. The requirements are documented and orderly; a prepared seller moves a qualified buyer through board review without drama.
Comparable buildings
If you're considering Boerum Court, also evaluate:
- 76 Schermerhorn Street (The Symon) — contemporary condominium directly west on Schermerhorn; the new-construction counterpoint
- 11 Schermerhorn Street — boutique prewar co-op at the Heights end of the street, inside the district
- 75 Livingston Street — 1926 neo-Gothic office-to-co-op conversion at Court Street; the closest architectural sibling
- 77 Livingston Street — large co-op neighbor on the Livingston corridor
- 110 Livingston Street — the former Board of Education headquarters, converted to condominiums; the institutional-conversion premise a generation later
- 199 State Street (The Lookout Hill Condominium) — boutique condominium on the Boerum Hill side of the seam
- 138 Pierrepont Street — small district condominium for buyers weighing district address against Boerum Court's space
The full playbook — what goes in the package, how boards read your financials, the interview, and the timeline — plus sample cover, reference, and personal letters you can adapt.
Considering a move at Boerum Court?
Request a private building brief with the relevant comparable sales, current and off-market availability, and an apartment-specific view of value.
Own an apartment here? See what it would sell for.
A Private Pricing Opinion — what your apartment at Boerum Court 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.