Three quarters of the apartments in this index sit in buildings finished since 2000. Of 149 indexed buildings with a known construction year, 109 were built in 2000 or later, and they hold 55,091 of the 72,413 apartments counted here. The 2010s alone account for 59 buildings and 31,719 apartments — 44% of the total, more than every decade before 2000 combined.
Large apartment buildings by era
| Era | Buildings | Apartments | Share | Avg. apartments | Avg. floors | Largest of the era |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Before 1960 | 6 | 2,978 | 4% | 496 | 40 | Twenty Exchange (720) |
| 1960s | 6 | 1,673 | 2% | 279 | 22 | Dwell95 (507) |
| 1970s | 11 | 5,573 | 8% | 507 | 32 | Manhattan Plaza (1,689) |
| 1980s | 7 | 2,598 | 4% | 371 | 36 | View 34 (740) |
| 1990s | 10 | 4,500 | 6% | 450 | 39 | One Columbus Place (729) |
| 2000s | 37 | 15,076 | 21% | 407 | 30 | Silver Towers (1,359) |
| 2010s | 59 | 31,719 | 44% | 538 | 38 | Jackson Park (1,871) |
| 2020s | 13 | 8,296 | 11% | 638 | 40 | Gotham Point (1,132) |
Buildings have been getting bigger
The average indexed building finished in the 2000s holds 407 apartments. In the 2010s that rises to 538, and in the 2020s so far to 638 — a 57% increase in average size in two decades. Average height moved much less, from 30 floors in the 2000s to 40 in the 2020s, so the growth is coming from wider floor plates and larger sites rather than simply taller towers.
The 1960s are the outlier in the other direction: six indexed buildings averaging 279 apartments and 22 floors, the smallest and lowest of any era here.
The geography moved out of Manhattan
This is the sharpest pattern in the data. Of the 40 indexed buildings finished before 2000, 38 are in Manhattan — the only exceptions are one pre-1960 building in the Bronx and one 1990s building in Brooklyn. Large rental construction, as captured by this index, was a Manhattan activity almost exclusively.
That breaks in the 2010s. Of 59 buildings finished that decade, 30 are in Manhattan and 29 are in Brooklyn (16) or Queens (13). In the 2020s the balance tips further: 4 in Manhattan, 5 in Brooklyn, 4 in Queens. The Long Island City waterfront and Downtown Brooklyn are doing work that used to happen in Midtown.
The oldest buildings here
Six indexed buildings predate 1960, five of them in Manhattan and concentrated in the Financial District. The oldest carries a construction year of 1898. Pre-war buildings at this scale are rare in the index not because they are rare in New York, but because this index tracks large multi-family rental buildings, and most pre-war housing stock of that size is organised differently.
How this is counted
Every figure on this page is computed from the 150 building records in this index, not from a city-wide dataset. 149 records carry a construction year; one does not and is excluded from the era breakdown. Years and apartment counts are compiled from public sources, and where a record has a known source that URL is published on the record so any figure can be traced and checked.
The index is a curated and growing set, not a census. It does not yet cover the city evenly — Staten Island is absent and the Bronx has a single record — so the era and borough patterns above describe what is indexed, and should be read as a strong signal about large rental construction rather than a complete account of it. Where a figure could not be confirmed it is left empty rather than estimated.
Browse the index
- The largest apartment buildings in New York City — the top 50 ranked by apartment count.
- All 150 buildings, A–Z — the full index on one page.
- The building directory — every record, with maps and nearby buildings.
- By borough: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx.