Two historic districts that carry the Murray Hill name
No city source gives Murray Hill street bounds, but the Landmarks Preservation Commission has put the name on two districts. Its Murray Hill Historic District, designated on January 29, 2002, takes in "seventy-one rowhouses, three apartment buildings, an architectural office, and a church" between East 35th and East 38th Streets, from Park Avenue to Lexington Avenue. The Murray Hill Historic District Extensions, designated March 30, 2004, added buildings on East 36th and East 37th Streets.
Two older districts sit in the same statistical unit, which the city calls Murray Hill-Kips Bay (neighborhood tabulation area MN0603). Sniffen Court, designated June 21, 1966, lies on East 36th Street between Lexington and Third Avenues; the commission records that its buildings "were originally stables owned by families living in the Murray Hill district." Tudor City, designated May 17, 1988, sits at the north-east corner of the city's Murray Hill-Kips Bay area, between East 40th and East 43rd Streets and First and Second Avenues, in what LPC calls "an area once known as Prospect Hill."
Landmark rules for owners
The commission regulates property after designation and counts more than 38,000 landmark properties citywide. For a buyer in any of these four districts, exterior work, windows included, generally needs an LPC permit. Ask the seller or board which exterior changes were made and whether the commission signed off. A walkthrough can describe the state of a sash or a cornice; it cannot say whether the last replacement was approved.
If the purchase is a rowhouse
One-, two- and three-family buildings hold 0.5% of the residential units that the city's tax-lot file (PLUTO) counts in the Murray Hill-Kips Bay area. When a nineteenth-century masonry rowhouse does change hands, the type typically calls for a close look at the roof and parapet, the stone or brick face and its lintels, the stoop, water entry at the cellar, the age of the heating plant and the size of the electrical service. DOB's Local Law 152 gas-piping rule exempts one- and two-family homes and other R-3 buildings, so a rowhouse legally divided into three or more homes falls under it.
The apartment side in figures
The same file counts 42,824 residential units on 896 lots in the Murray Hill-Kips Bay area. Elevator rental buildings hold 44.8% of those units, co-op buildings 24.1%, condominiums 19.8% and walk-ups 9.1%. By age, 29.2% were built before 1940, 43.0% between 1940 and 1979, and 27.8% from 1980 on. For ZIP code tabulation area 10016, which covers most of the area, the Census Bureau's 2020–2024 survey counts 7,584 (±826) owner-occupied homes among 30,235 occupied units, roughly a quarter (table B25003).
What a unit walkthrough reaches, and where it stops
For a co-op or condo unit, the walkthrough stays inside the apartment: the electrical panel, outlets and visible wiring; supply valves, drains and traps at each sink, tub and toilet; the windows and their seals; the radiator, through-wall unit or ducted system that heats and cools the rooms; kitchen and bath exhaust; and stains, soft plaster or lifted flooring that point to water coming in from the unit above or through an exterior wall. Roofs, boiler rooms, risers inside neighbors' walls, the board's decisions and the building's reserves are outside it.
Those building questions go to records. Any plan that was submitted is covered by the Attorney General's offering plan database, which carries amendments too and, for some plan IDs, the documents themselves; the Attorney General also regulates the conversion of rental buildings to co-ops and condominiums. The Department of Finance's ACRIS shows recorded documents for Manhattan from 1966 to the present, deeds among them.
For gas piping, most of the area is in Manhattan Community District 6, where DOB's Local Law 152 window runs from 1 January to 31 December 2026 and the one after it falls in 2030. A strip lies in Community District 5, where the 2025 window has passed and the next comes in 2029. Confirm the community district by address, then ask the managing agent for the building's GPS2 certification.
A second name in the same statistical area
The city's Murray Hill-Kips Bay tabulation area joins two neighborhood names, and the second gets its own section here.
Kips Bay
No city source gives Kips Bay boundaries, so none are drawn here. Its secure landmark is the Public Baths at the northeast corner of East 23rd Street and Asser Levy Place, built in 1904–06 to a design by Arnold W. Brunner and William Martin Aiken and designated March 19, 1974. At 160 Lexington Avenue, the former New York School of Applied Design for Women, built in 1908–09 by Harvey Wiley Corbett and designated May 10, 1977, is counted as Kips Bay by convention only; its report does not use the name. The 6 train's 28 St and 33 St stops, listed in the state's subway station data, sit on the western edge of the official area. FEMA's preliminary maps place some residential lots along First Avenue in the East 30s in Zone AE; check the building's own address.
Flood maps and East 42nd Street
FEMA's maps show AE zones (and its preliminary maps VE zones) along the East River shoreline of the city's Murray Hill-Kips Bay area, on both the effective and preliminary layers. Until new maps are issued, the city says, insurance rates stay tied to the 2007 effective FIRMs (NYC flood maps). A zone drawn for insurance is not a verdict on any one building, so enter the exact address on FEMA's Map Service Center.
At the north end, Grand Central-42 St on the 7 line lies inside the official area according to the state's station data, with the 4, 5 and 6 platforms on its edge, and LPC's landmark data lists the Chanin, Daily News and Ford Foundation buildings on East 42nd Street.
For a unit or rowhouse here, send the address through the contact page; walkthroughs run in English or Bangla, with a same-day report.