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{{Cite book | last = Kane | first = Larry | authorlink = Larry Kane | title = Lennon Revealed| publisher = Running Press | year = 2005 | pages = 20 | url = http://books.google.com/?id=wGBEpc7qCmwC&pg=PA20&lpg=PA20 | isbn = }}</ref>
{{Cite book | last = Kane | first = Larry | authorlink = Larry Kane | title = Lennon Revealed| publisher = Running Press | year = 2005 | pages = 20 | url = http://books.google.com/?id=wGBEpc7qCmwC&pg=PA20&lpg=PA20 | isbn = }}</ref>
* [[Roberta Flack]], singer <ref>[http://www.smh.com.au/news/entertainment/music/gig-reviews/roberta-flack/2009/01/28/1232818520981.htmlBruce Elder, Roberta Flack interview, ''The Sydney Mordning Herald'', January 28, 2009] accessed 20 January 2010</ref>
* [[Roberta Flack]], singer <ref>[http://www.smh.com.au/news/entertainment/music/gig-reviews/roberta-flack/2009/01/28/1232818520981.htmlBruce Elder, Roberta Flack interview, ''The Sydney Mordning Herald'', January 28, 2009] accessed 20 January 2010</ref>
* [[Buddy Fletcher]], money manager/philanthropist
* [[Lillian Gish]], actress.<ref>"Homesteading at the Dakota," ''New York Times.'' July 27, 2010, p. R-2; [[Ruth P. Smith]]'s apartment was once the home of Lillian Gish.</ref>
* [[Lillian Gish]], actress.<ref>"Homesteading at the Dakota," ''New York Times.'' July 27, 2010, p. R-2; [[Ruth P. Smith]]'s apartment was once the home of Lillian Gish.</ref>
* [[Judy Garland]], actress <ref name="nymag">{{Cite web | last = Appleton | first = Kate | title = Landmarks: The Dakota | work = [[New York Magazine]] website | url = http://nymag.com/listings/attraction/the-dakota/ | accessdate = 30 December 2009 }}</ref>
* [[Judy Garland]], actress <ref name="nymag">{{Cite web | last = Appleton | first = Kate | title = Landmarks: The Dakota | work = [[New York Magazine]] website | url = http://nymag.com/listings/attraction/the-dakota/ | accessdate = 30 December 2009 }}</ref>
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* [[Rex Reed]], critic <ref name="nymag" />
* [[Rex Reed]], critic <ref name="nymag" />
* [[Jason Robards]], actor <ref>He and his wife Lauren Bacall shared an apartment</ref>
* [[Jason Robards]], actor <ref>He and his wife Lauren Bacall shared an apartment</ref>
* [[Jane Rosenthal]], producer
* [[Robert Ryan]], actor <!-- Robert Ryan initially sublet his apartment to John Lennon and Yoko Ono. They eventually purchased his former apartment after his death. --> <ref>http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0752813/bio</ref>
* [[Robert Ryan]], actor <!-- Robert Ryan initially sublet his apartment to John Lennon and Yoko Ono. They eventually purchased his former apartment after his death. --> <ref>http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0752813/bio</ref>
* [[Maynard Solomon]], music producer and writer{{Citation needed|date=October 2010}}
* [[Maynard Solomon]], music producer and writer{{Citation needed|date=October 2010}}

Revision as of 03:00, 24 October 2010

This article is about a building. For other uses, see Dakota (disambiguation).
Dakota Apartments
The Dakota
The Dakota is located in New York City
The Dakota
LocationManhattan, New York
Built1880
ArchitectHenry J. Hardenbergh
Architectural styleRenaissance
NRHP reference No.72000869
Significant dates
Added to NRHPApril 26, 1972[1]
Designated NHLDecember 8, 1976[2]

The Dakota, constructed from October 25, 1880 to October 27, 1884,[3] is a co-op apartment building located on the northwestern corner of 72nd Street and Central Park West in the Manhattan borough of New York City.[4]

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.[5]

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 often repeated stories, 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.[6] 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][7]

Features

Photograph of the eastern elevation of The Dakota and a portion of Central Park, c. 1890
The Dakota c. 1890; at the time, this area of Manhattan was only sparsely developed, and remote from the core of the city's population
Entrance where John Lennon was shot

The Dakota is square, built around a central courtyard. The arched main entrance is a porte cochère large enough for the horse-drawn carriages that once entered and allowed passengers to disembark sheltered from the weather. Many of these carriages were housed in a multi-story stable building at 72nd Street and Amsterdam Avenue, where elevators lifted them to the upper floors. The "Dakota Stables" building was in operation as a garage until February 2007, when it was slated to be transformed by the Related Companies into a condominium residence.

The general layout of the apartments is 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 allows a natural migration for guests from one room to another, especially on festive occasions, yet gives service staff discreet separate circulation patterns that offer 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 toward the courtyard. Apartments thus are aired from two sides, which was a relative novelty in Manhattan at the time. (In the Stuyvesant building, which was built in 1869, a mere ten years earlier, and which is considered Manhattan's first apartment building in the French style, many apartments have windows to one side only.) Some of the drawing rooms are 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, famously, some floors were inlaid with sterling silver).

Originally, the Dakota had sixty-five apartments with four to twenty rooms, no two being 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 also could be sent up to the apartments by dumbwaiters. Electricity was generated by an in-house power plant and the building has central heating. Beside servant quarters, there was a playroom and a gymnasium under the roof. In later years, these spaces on the tenth floor were converted into apartments for economic reasons. The Dakota property also contained a garden, 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 it was a long-term drain on the fortune of Clark (who died before it was completed) and his heirs. For the high society of Manhattan, it became fashionable to live in the building, or at least to rent an apartment there as a secondary city residence, and The Dakota's success prompted the construction of many other luxury apartment buildings in Manhattan.

Death of John Lennon

Main article: Death of John Lennon

The building was the home of former Beatle John Lennon from 1973 on, and was the location of Lennon's murder by Mark David Chapman on December 8, 1980. As of 2010, Lennon's wife, Yoko Ono, still has several apartments 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.[8]

Fence detail

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 sound stage as the Dakota does not allow filming inside.[citation needed]

The Dakota also has 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]

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]

Video footage of the building sometimes is 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 be seen across the street in the background in one of Saki's pictures of New York.

It is also the home of Hunter Rose, from the graphic novel series Grendel.[9]

In the second season of Hana Yori Dango; A popular Japanese Live-action drama based on the manga of the same name, main character Tsukasa Domyouji (played by Jun Matsumoto) resides in The Dakota.

In the television sitcom Frasier, the character Niles lives in a prestigious building called The Montana, based on The Dakota.

Archival photograph of the South entrance
Elevation (south, the front of the building)

Famous residents

Well-known residents of the Dakota building have included:

This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by adding missing items with reliable sources.

Although historically home to many creative or artistic people, the building and its co-op board of directors were criticized in 2005 by former resident Albert Maysles. He attempted to sell his ownership to actors Melanie Griffith and Antonio Banderas, but they were rejected. 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."[21] Even prior to this, both Gene Simmons[22] and Billy Joel[23] were denied residency by the board. In 2002 The Dakota rejected corrugated-cardboard magnate and Democratic nominee for Lieutenant Governor of New York, Dennis Mehiel.[24]

References

Notes
  1. ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. 2006-03-15.
  2. ^ a b "Dakota Apartments". National Historic Landmark summary listing. National Park Service. 2007-09-11.
  3. ^ Historic American Buildings Survey, The Dakota (Apartments), 1 West 72nd Street, Central Park West, New York, New York County, NY, page 2. URL last. Retrieved 24 October 2006.
  4. ^ Brockmann, Jorg et al. (2002). One Thousand New York Buildings, pp. 342-343., p. 342, at Google Books
  5. ^ The superintendent of the construction of the Dakota Building was George Henry Griebel, born and trained in Berlin, Prussia, and Karl Jacobson, who were hired as architects for the project. "Griebel also designed and supervised buildings for the Clark Estate for a period of eighteen years after building the Dakota Building including the Singer Manufacturing Company Office Building on Third Avenue and Sixteenth Street, fourteen houses on West Eighty-fifth St, a row of houses on West Seventy-fourth Street; both being near Columbus Ave,the Barnett Store, Columbus and Seventy-fourth St and many others."
  6. ^ Gray, Christopher. New York Streetscapes. Harry N. Abrams, Inc. pp. 326–328. ISBN 0810944413.
  7. ^ Carolyn Pitts (1976-08-10). "National Register of Historic Places Inventory: Dakota Apartments" (Document). National Park Service. {{cite document}}: Unknown parameter |accessdate= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |format= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |url= ignored (help) and Template:PDFlink
  8. ^ The Dakota www.travelgoat.com. Retrieved July 18, 2007.
  9. ^ http://www.teachingcomics.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=74%3AGrendel%3A+Devil+Child+&Itemid=58
  10. ^ "At Home With Lauren Bacall" The New York Times Home & Garden section, February 24, 2005
  11. ^ "Buy Leonard Bernsteins Dakota Apartment for Only 25.5 Million" November 5, 2006
  12. ^ a b c d Appleton, Kate. "Landmarks: The Dakota". New York Magazine website. Retrieved 30 December 2009.
  13. ^ a b c Kane, Larry (2005). Lennon Revealed. Running Press. p. 20.
  14. ^ Elder, Roberta Flack interview, The Sydney Mordning Herald, January 28, 2009 accessed 20 January 2010
  15. ^ "Homesteading at the Dakota," New York Times. July 27, 2010, p. R-2; Ruth P. Smith's apartment was once the home of Lillian Gish.
  16. ^ Rosenblum, Constance (August 2, 2009). "A Life in Pictures: Albert Maysles". The New York Times. Retrieved May 25, 2010.
  17. ^ The contents of Rudolf Nureyev's Dakota apartment fetched almost $8 million in a two-day sale at Christie's ("Nureyev Auction Tops Estimates", The New York Times, January 15, 1995)
  18. ^ Stephen Birmingham, Life at the Dakota: New York's most unusual address 1996:85.
  19. ^ He and his wife Lauren Bacall shared an apartment
  20. ^ http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0752813/bio
  21. ^ Neuman, William (June 19, 2005). "New Co-op for Soup Executive". The New York Times. Retrieved May 25, 2010.
  22. ^ Tony Schwartz. "Plan by Nixon to Buy Co-op in City Is Opposed by Some Other Owners :Board Vote Called Favorable." New York Times, August 1, 1979.
  23. ^ Albin Krebs. "Notes on People: Dakota Blocks Billy Joel's Bid to Buy Apartment." New York Times, June 28, 1980.
  24. ^ Max Abelson. "Dakota-Spurned Cardboard Magnate Mehiel Asking $35 M. for Carhart Mansion Duplex." The New York Observer, August 12, 2008
Bibliography
  • Birmingham, S.: Life at the Dakota, Syracuse University Press. Reprint edition, 1996. ISBN 0-8156-0338-X. Originally published by Random House, 1979, ISBN 0-394-41079-3.
  • Brockmann, Jorg and Bill Harris. (2002). One Thousand New York Buildings. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal. 10-ISBN 157912237X/13-ISBN 9781579122379; OCLC 48619292
  • Schoenauer, N.: 6000 Years of Housing, 3rd ed., pp. 335 – 336, W.W. Norton & Co., 2001. ISBN 0-393-73120-0.
  • Alpern, A.: New York's fabulous luxury apartments: with original floor plans from the Dakota, River House, Olympic Tower, and other great buildings. New York: Dover Publications, 1975, 1987, Exterior views and sample floor plans as well as brief historical synopses, each with architect, builder, date built, and when applicable, date razed.
  • Van Pelt, D. Leslie's History of the Greater New York, Volume III New York: Arkell Publishing Company 110 Fifth Avenue, 1898,
  • L. A. Williams Publishing and Engraving Company. Encyclopedia of Biography and Genealogy, vol. III pp. 656.
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