Park Avenue South to Stuyvesant Square: four designated districts
- The Gramercy Park Historic District, designated September 20, 1966, whose boundary names Park Avenue South, East 21st Street, Gramercy Park North and Gramercy Park East.
- The Gramercy Park Historic District Extension, designated July 12, 1988.
- The Stuyvesant Square Historic District, designated September 23, 1975.
- The East 17th Street/Irving Place Historic District, designated June 30, 1998, whose boundary begins on East 17th Street.
All four lie in the city's official Gramercy area. Under the Landmarks Law, exterior work on a designated property, and some interior work, needs a commission permit first. For a co-op in one of these districts, that means the board and the commission both stand between a buyer and a facade-facing change. The LPC's applications page links to a Permit Application Search listing what the building has filed. A search by address before contract shows whether a window, roof or storefront application is already moving.
Co-ops, rentals and two eras
The city's tax-lot file, PLUTO, counts 18,735 residential units on 621 lots in the official Gramercy area. Co-op buildings hold 32.5% of them and elevator rentals 31.3%; condos hold 17.8%, walk-ups 13.3%, mixed-use and other buildings 4.3%, and one- to three-family houses about 0.8%. The ages split in two: 44.3% of units are in pre-1940 buildings and 39.1% in buildings from 1940 through 1979, with 16.6% from 1980 on.
Inside the official Gramercy area, the MTA station dataset records 3 Av on the L train. The 23 St-Baruch College stop on the 6 train and the 4/5/6 and N/Q/R/W platforms at 14 St-Union Sq sit in the adjoining Midtown South-Flatiron-Union Square area.
Reading a co-op before you buy into it
As the Attorney General's cooperatives page describes it, a co-op buyer acquires shares allocated to a specific apartment, with a long-term proprietary lease and maintenance tied to the share count. The public part of the record sits in the Offering Plan Database, searchable by address or sponsor, which lists the original filing, the sponsor and principals, the dates and the list of amendments, and posts the documents for some plans. The financial statements, recent minutes and any planned assessment are not public; they come from the board and the managing agent through your attorney. If you plan to renovate, ask early for the building's alteration agreement and house rules, since those set what work is allowed inside the apartment and when.
A gas-piping window that is open now
For buildings in Community District 6, the current Local Law 152 inspection window runs through December 31, 2026; the next runs in 2030. The official Gramercy area only approximates the community district, so confirm the district by address on DOB's gas piping inspections page, which also has a per-address compliance search. Only one- and two-family homes and other R-3 buildings fall outside the law. A buyer closing in late 2026 can reasonably ask whether this year's certification has been filed, since a missed filing may bring a $5,000 civil penalty.
Inside a mid-century or pre-war co-op
Elevator co-ops from 1940 through 1979 typically have through-wall air-conditioner sleeves, replacement windows from several different decades, and original bathroom tile over concealed supply lines. Pre-war buildings typically add plaster walls and steam radiators. The unit walkthrough covers:
- the panel, circuits and outlets, and any subpanel added in a renovation;
- sink, tub and toilet supply, shut-offs, and drain speed;
- radiators, convectors or fan coils, and the air-conditioner sleeves;
- window operation, seals and sills;
- bath and kitchen exhaust;
- ceilings and exterior walls for staining from above or from outside;
- the cabinets under sinks and around the tub for signs of slow leaks that never reached a ceiling.
The boiler, roof, facade, elevators and the co-op's reserves are the corporation's and sit outside the walkthrough.
Flood maps
FEMA's preliminary maps show a 0.2%-annual-chance flood area, sometimes called the 500-year floodplain, intersecting the city's Gramercy area. That result comes from FEMA's preliminary National Flood Hazard Layer. Preliminary maps can change before they take effect, so check the building's own address at the FEMA Map Service Center.
Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village in the public record
The complex known as Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village has no page of its own on this site, and the public record explains why. The tax-lot file shows the city's Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village area as two tax lots, both recorded to limited liability companies, holding 11,255 rental units in elevator buildings. The Census Bureau's 2020–2024 American Community Survey estimates zero (±21) owner-occupied units in tract 44 and zero (±19) in tract 60, the two census tracts that make it up; these are survey estimates, and the figures in parentheses are their margins of error. The city's February 2016 Preliminary Mayor's Management Report records a 20-year agreement to protect 5,000 units there as affordable. The research behind this page found no evidence of units offered for sale.
Away from the complex, in the co-op and condo buildings of the official Gramercy area, the commission's permit search and the plan's amendments are two records a buyer can read before the board package arrives.