the Dakota

Dakota Apartments
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
U.S. National Historic Landmark
The remote Central Park West, c. 1890
Location:	New York, NY
Coordinates:	40°46′35.74″N 73°58′35.44″W / 40.7765944°N 73.9765111°W / 40.7765944; -73.9765111
Built/Founded:	1880
Architect:	Henry J. Hardenbergh
Architectural style(s):	Renaissance
Governing body:	Private
Added to NRHP:	April 26, 1972[1]
Designated NHL:	December 8, 1976[2]
NRHP Reference#:	72000869

The Dakota, constructed from October 25, 1880 to October 27, 1884,^[3] is an apartment building located on the northwest corner of 72nd Street and Central Park West in New York City.

The architectural firm of Henry Janeway Hardenbergh was commissioned to create the design for Edward Clark, head of the Singer Sewing Machine Company. The firm also designed the Plaza Hotel.^[4]

The building's high gables and deep roofs with a profusion of dormers, terracotta spandrels and panels, niches, balconies and balustrades give it a North German Renaissance character, an echo of a Hanseatic townhall. Nevertheless, its layout and floor plan betray a strong influence of French architectural trends in housing design that had become known in New York in the 1870s.

According to popular legend, the Dakota was so named because at the time it was built, the Upper West Side of Manhattan was sparsely inhabited and considered as remote as the Dakota Territory. However, the earliest recorded appearance of this account is in a 1933 newspaper story. It is more likely that the building was named "The Dakota" because of Clark's fondness for the names of the new western states and territories.^[5] High above the 72nd Street entrance, the figure of a Dakota Indian keeps watch. The Dakota was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972, and was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1976.^[2][6]

Features

The Dakota circa 1890

The Dakota, 2007

The Dakota is built in a square-shape around a central courtyard, accessible through the arched passage of the main entrance, a porte cochère large enough that horse-drawn carriages could pass through, letting their passengers disembark sheltered from the weather. In the Dakota multi-story stable building at 72nd Street and Amsterdam Avenue, elevators lifted carriages to upper floors. The "Dakota Stables" building was still in operation as a garage until February 2007, but it is now slated to be developed by the Related Companies into a multimillion dollar condominium project.

The general layout of the apartments is also in the French style of the period, with all major rooms not only connected to each other en filade in the traditional way, but also accessible from a hall or corridor, an arrangement that allowed a natural migration for guests from one room to another, especially on festive occasions, yet gave service staff discreet separate circulation patterns that offered service access to the main rooms. The principal rooms, such as parlors or the master bedroom, face the street, while the dining room, kitchen, and other auxiliary rooms are oriented towards the courtyard. Apartments are thus aired from two sides, which was a relative novelty in New York at the time. (In the Stuyvesant building, which was built in 1869, a mere ten years earlier, and which is considered New York's first apartment building in the French style, many apartments have windows to one side only.) Some of the drawing rooms were 49 ft (15 m) long, and many of the ceilings are 14 ft (4.3 m) high; the floors are inlaid with mahogany, oak, and cherry (although in the apartment of Clark, the building's founder, some floors were famously inlaid with sterling silver).

Elevation (south front)

Originally, the Dakota had 65 apartments with four to twenty rooms, no two alike. These apartments are accessed by staircases and elevators placed in the four corners of the courtyard. Separate service stairs and elevators serving the kitchens are located in mid-block. Built to cater for the well-to-do, the Dakota featured many amenities and a modern infrastructure that was exceptional for the time. The building has a large dining hall; meals could also be sent up to the apartments by dumbwaiters. Electricity was generated by an in-house power plant, and the building has central heating. Besides servants' quarters, there was a playroom and a gymnasium under the roof. (In later years, these spaces on the tenth floor were—for economic reasons—converted into apartments, too.) The lot of the Dakota also comprised a garden and private croquet lawns and a tennis court behind the building between 72nd and 73rd Streets.

The Dakota was a huge social success from the very start (all apartments were rented before the building opened), but a long-term drain on the fortune of Clark (who died before it was completed) and his heirs. For the high society of New York, it became fashionable to live in such a building, or to rent at least an apartment as a secondary city residence, and the Dakota's success prompted the construction of many other luxury apartment buildings in New York City.

Death of John Lennon and memorial

Entrance where John Lennon was shot.

The building is best known as the home of former Beatle John Lennon, starting in 1973, and as the location of Lennon's murder by Mark David Chapman on December 8, 1980. As of 2009, Ono still has an apartment in the building. The Strawberry Fields memorial was laid out in memory of Lennon in Central Park directly across Central Park West. Every year, Ono marks the anniversary of Lennon's death with a now-public pilgrimage to the memorial.^[7]

In popular culture

Several movies, including Rosemary's Baby and Vanilla Sky directed by Roman Polanski and Cameron Crowe respectively, use the exterior of the Dakota. Interiors of the building portrayed in the films had to be shot on a soundstage as the Dakota does not allow filming inside.^{[citation needed]}

The Dakota has also been mentioned specifically in several novels including Time and Again by Jack Finney, The Hard Way by Lee Child, Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child's novels about the character Special Agent Aloysius X. L. Pendergast, Harlan Coben's novels about Horne Lockwood III, and the book series The Baby-Sitters Club.^{[citation needed]}

Fence detail

Several bands and artists also mention the Dakota in their songs, most often in reference to John Lennon. Some of those songs are performed by Tim Curry, Nas, Hole, Christine Lavin, Brand New, and O.A.R., along with a reference in the musical The Last Five Years.^{[citation needed]}

It is also quite plausible that the fictional residence of Dr. Niles Crane on the TV show Frasier - the Montana, is based on the Dakota.

Video footage of the building is sometimes used when going into and coming out of commercial breaks during the court show Judge Judy.

In the anime Eden of the East, The Dakota can been seen across the street in the background in one of Saki's pictures of New York.

Education

The Dakota is zoned to P.S. 87 William Sherman within the New York City Department of Education. It is unzoned for middle school; residents may contact Region 10 to determine the middle school assignments.

Famous residents

Archival photograph of the South entrance

Well-known residents of the Dakota building have included:

• Lauren Bacall - actress^[8]
• Leonard Bernstein - composer/conductor; 2nd floor, northeast corner, sold after his death to the owner of a string of car dealerships^[9]
• Bono
• Connie Chung and husband, talk-show host Maury Povich - newscaster
• F. Ambrose Clark, who was also grandson of the original builder - sportsman
• Bob Crewe - songwriter/producer
• José Ferrer - actor
• Roberta Flack - singer
• Charles Henri Ford - author
• Judy Garland - actress
• Steve Guttenberg - actor
• Judy Holliday - actress
• William Inge - playwright
• Boris Karloff - actor
• Mills Lane
• John Lennon - composer/singer (Lennon owned five apartments in The Dakota. One was used as an office, another was a guest apartment, they lived in one, and they used the others for storage)
• Sean Lennon, son of John and Yoko - singer
• John Madden - football player, coach and announcer
• Syrie Maugham - interior decorator
• Albert Maysles - filmmaker
• Carson McCullers - author
• Ian McDonald - musician
• Rudolf Nureyev - dancer^[10]
• Yoko Ono - artist
• Gilda Radner - comedienne
• Rex Reed - critic
• Jason Robards - actor^[11]
• Robert Ryan - actor (Robert Ryan initially sublet his apartment to John Lennon and Yoko Ono. They eventually purchased his former apartment after his death) ^[12]
• Edgar J. Scherick - film and television producer
• Zachary Scott - actor
• Neil Sedaka - singer
• Paul Simon
• Sting - musician

Although historically home to many creative or artistic people, the building and its board were criticized in 2005 by former resident Albert Maysles, who attempted to sell his ownership to actors Melanie Griffith and Antonio Banderas, who were rejected by the board. Maysles expressed his "disappointment with the way the building seems to be changing" by telling the New York Times: "What's so shocking is that the building is losing its touch with interesting people. More and more, they're moving away from creative people and going toward people who just have the money."^[13] Even prior to this, both Gene Simmons and Billy Joel were denied residency by the board in the 1970s.^{[citation needed]} In 2002 The Dakota rejected corrugated-cardboard magnate and Democratic nominee for Lieutenant Governor of New York Dennis Mehiel.

References

External links

Wikisource has original text related to this article: The Dakota

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Dakota Building

• Dakota Building in Google Maps

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