The new condo was the ubiquitous symbol of Manhattan’s housing boom. Tens of thousands—as many as 9,000 in 2005 alone, according to an analysis at the time by The Real Deal—either were proposed for the borough or developed and sold.
Not surprisingly, condos eventually outpaced co-ops in sales—a not insignificant trend given that, even with the condo-building explosion, co-ops still outnumbered condos roughly 3 to 1 in Manhattan. In the second quarter of 2009,...