At a glance
Firm: Bing & Bing Founders & principals: Leo S. Bing and Alexander M. Bing (brothers) Active: Roughly 1900s–1930s (New York City); the family sold most of the portfolio in 1985 Focus: Ground-up luxury prewar apartment houses and apartment-hotels, concentrated on the Upper East Side, Park and Fifth Avenues, Gramercy, Greenwich Village, and the Sutton-adjacent East 50s Principal architects: Emery Roth and Emery Roth & Sons — the firm's signature design partner — with Robert T. Lyons, J.E.R. Carpenter, and Schwartz & Gross on individual commissions Signature reputation: The premier prewar apartment developer of its era — renowned for high construction quality, gracious room layouts, and thick masonry buildings that remain among the most sought-after co-ops in the city Status today: Long defunct as an operating firm; its buildings survive as prized cooperatives and a handful of condominiums Source: The Roebling Team at Compass — historical and architectural detail verified against The Roebling Research Library, public records, landmark designation reports, and published architectural history. July 2026.
Who Bing & Bing were
Bing & Bing was the apartment-development firm of two brothers, Leo S. Bing and Alexander M. Bing, who by the 1910s and 1920s had become the most consequential builders of luxury apartment houses in New York. Trained in law before they turned to real estate, the brothers built dozens of apartment buildings, studio buildings, and apartment-hotels across Manhattan over roughly three decades — a run that established "Bing & Bing" as shorthand, then and now, for a certain grade of prewar living.
Alexander Bing stepped back from the commercial firm in the early 1920s to devote himself to housing reform and planned communities — he became a central figure in the garden-city movement and the development of Sunnyside Gardens and Radburn — while the apartment business carried forward under the Bing name. The brothers' commercial legacy, though, is the portfolio of Manhattan buildings, and it is remarkably durable: a century on, a "Bing & Bing building" is still a phrase brokers and buyers use as a mark of quality.
For a buyer, the relevant point is consistency of intent. Bing & Bing built for the top of the prewar market and did not cut the building short to do it. Thick masonry walls, high ceilings, real plaster, hardwood floors, gracious and logically planned layouts, and generous public rooms are the recurring signatures — the reason these buildings have aged as well as any residential stock in the city.
What they built
Bing & Bing's signature was the high-quality prewar luxury apartment house, most often executed with Emery Roth, the architect whose Central Park West towers (the Beresford, the San Remo, the Eldorado) made him the defining apartment designer of the age. Roth's work for the Bings paired solidly engineered masonry construction with the graceful, well-proportioned layouts — dining foyers, corner living rooms, windowed kitchens, generous room counts — that buyers still prize.
The firm did not build to a single template. On individual commissions the Bings also worked with Robert T. Lyons (565 Park Avenue, "The Lonsdale," 1912), J.E.R. Carpenter with D. Everett Waid (960 Park Avenue, "The Norma," 1912), and Schwartz & Gross (970 Park Avenue, 1912) — a reminder that the portfolio spans the elite Park Avenue architects of the era, not Roth alone. What unifies the work is build quality and layout rather than a single facade style: the book ranges from Neo-Federal and Neo-Renaissance masonry to the Art Deco / Art Moderne idiom of the firm's late-1920s and early-1930s buildings, several of which step back into private setback terraces.
The firm also developed at enclave scale — coordinated groups of buildings sharing a design language and, often, a private garden or courtyard. The Southgate group on the East 50s and the Eastgate buildings on East 73rd Street are the clearest examples: multi-building compositions that gave the Bings a recognizable signature on the map, not just a single-address one.
Buildings by Bing & Bing
Bing & Bing buildings profiled on this site:
- 1133 Fifth Avenue — Emery Roth's 1928 Neo-Federal Carnegie Hill co-op, 17 residences, within the Carnegie Hill Historic District
- 59 West 12th Street — Emery Roth's 1931 Art Deco / Art Moderne building on the lower Fifth Avenue "Gold Coast," now a condominium, in the Greenwich Village Historic District
- 45 Gramercy Park North — a 1927 Neo-Renaissance co-op facing the private park, with coveted park keys, in the Gramercy Park Historic District
- 565 Park Avenue — "The Lonsdale," a 1912 Robert T. Lyons building in the Upper East Side Historic District
- 570 Park Avenue — Emery Roth's 1916 Georgian / Neo-Renaissance lower–Park Avenue co-op
- 960 Park Avenue — "The Norma," a 1912 J.E.R. Carpenter building in the Park Avenue Historic District
- 970 Park Avenue — a 1912 Schwartz & Gross Georgian Revival co-op, a contributing structure in the Park Avenue Historic District
- 220 East 73rd Street and 230 East 73rd Street — two of the Emery Roth–designed Eastgate buildings on Lenox Hill
- 410 East 52nd Street, 414 East 52nd Street, 424 East 52nd Street, 433 East 51st Street, and 434 East 52nd Street — the Emery Roth–designed Southgate enclave (1928–1931) near the East River
Beyond these, the Bings' wider portfolio famously included Central Park West and lower–Fifth Avenue apartment houses and studio buildings across Manhattan; the family sold the bulk of the operating portfolio in 1985.
Track record and market performance
The measure that matters for a prewar developer is not sell-through in a single cycle but enduring value across a century, and by that test Bing & Bing's record is exceptional. A "Bing & Bing building" remains one of the most reliably desirable descriptors in the Manhattan resale market: the name signals thick walls, high ceilings, real prewar layouts, and a quality of construction that new buildings rarely match at the same price. That reputation supports steady, resilient demand across the portfolio — on Park and Fifth Avenue, in Gramercy, in the Village, and across the Southgate and Eastgate enclaves.
Value in these buildings is best read on a per-room and per-share basis and within a specific line — floor, exposure, terrace configuration, and renovation level drive price far more than any single building average. But the throughline is consistent: buyers pay for prewar bones and full-service infrastructure, and the market has validated that premium decade after decade. For a resale buyer, the Bing & Bing pedigree is a genuine liquidity asset — these are buildings the next purchaser will also want.
Architectural legacy and what a buyer should know
Bing & Bing's enduring legacy is build quality. These are among the best-constructed apartment houses New York ever produced — masonry-and-plaster buildings engineered for permanence, with the gracious layouts that made Emery Roth the most sought-after apartment architect of his generation. That legacy is why the buildings remain prized, and why several sit within protected historic districts: Carnegie Hill, Gramercy Park, Greenwich Village, the Upper East Side, and Park Avenue among them. Where a building is a contributing structure in a historic district, exterior alterations run through Landmarks Preservation Commission review — a protection for the streetscape and a factor in any facade or window project.
For a buyer, the honest guidance is that a Bing & Bing apartment is a roughly 90-to-110-year-old home, and it should be bought with that in mind:
- Prewar systems and infrastructure. Original buildings may carry aging risers, older electrical capacity, steam or hot-water heat, and — where not upgraded — knob-and-tube or early wiring behind the walls. Many of these buildings have been substantially modernized by their co-op boards over the decades; the point is to confirm what has actually been done. Ask about riser replacement, electrical service to the line, window condition, roof and facade history, and any Local Law 11 (facade) cycle work.
- Renovation scope. These layouts are gracious but original: kitchens and baths in un-renovated lines can be small and dated, and combining or reconfiguring rooms in a masonry, load-bearing prewar building is a real project. Budget for it, and understand the board's alteration agreement and approval process before you plan a gut.
- Co-op board approval and financials. Most Bing & Bing buildings are cooperatives with full board approval, financial-strength requirements, and — often — limits on financing and subletting. Review the building's financials, reserve fund, any assessments, flip-tax and sublet policies, and the board package requirements early. A strong, well-capitalized co-op is part of what you are buying.
- What to verify. Read the offering plan or proprietary lease and house rules, review recent board minutes for planned capital work and assessments, confirm the status of any facade or infrastructure projects, and have an engineer or contractor scope the specific apartment. In the condominium exceptions (such as 59 West 12th Street), standard condo diligence applies.
None of this is a caution against these buildings — it is the ordinary due diligence of buying a landmark-grade prewar home. Handled well, a Bing & Bing apartment is one of the most durable residential assets in the city.
The Roebling Team on Bing & Bing buildings
We publish developer profiles because the building behind an apartment is part of what a buyer is acquiring — its construction, its board, its place in the market. With a heritage developer like Bing & Bing, that history is a genuine asset: it explains why these prewar co-ops have held their standing for a century, and it frames the questions worth asking before you buy an older building. The Roebling Team at Compass tracks Manhattan's prewar inventory building by building, and we bring that context to every transaction — what the building is, how it has held value, and what to verify before you sign.
If you're evaluating a Bing & Bing apartment — or weighing one prewar co-op against another — a 30-minute consultation is the right starting point.
Corey Cohen, Principal · The Roebling Team at Compass 646.939.7375 · c.cohen@compass.com
This developer profile reflects publicly available historical and architectural information — including NYC public records, landmark designation reports, and published architectural history — together with The Roebling Team's transaction experience. It is provided for research purposes and is not legal advice. The Roebling Team at Compass does not represent Bing & Bing or its successors or the founders' estates. © 2026 The Roebling Team at Compass.