The Dakota

The Dakota, constructed from October 25 1880 to October 27 1884,^[1] is an apartment building located on the northwest corner of 72nd Street and Central Park West in New York City. It was designed by architect Henry Janeway Hardenbergh, who also designed the Plaza Hotel, for Edward Clark, head of the Singer Sewing Machine Company. It is famous as the residence of John Lennon and the site where he was murdered. It has also appeared in fiction, notably Jack Finney's 1970 novel, Time and Again.

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.

The building is said to have been 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. 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 (Building #72000869).

Features

Close-up of the Dakota, The Majestic in the background.

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 on Columbus Avenue, elevators lifted carriages to upper floors: the building is still in operation as a garage.

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, the kitchen, and other auxiliary rooms are oriented on 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. (about 15 m) long, and many of the ceilings are 14 ft. high (more than 4 m); 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).

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 stables for the tenant's horses and carriages were located on Columbus Avenue in a building that survives as a garage.

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.

Today, the building is best known as the home of former Beatle John Lennon starting in 1973, and as the site of his murder on December 8 1980. As of 2006, Lennon's widow, Yoko 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.

In popular culture

Director Roman Polanski filmed the exteriors for Rosemary's Baby at the Dakota; however, the interiors were created in a Hollywood soundstage. The building does not allow filming inside.
The building also plays a crucial role in Jack Finney's novel Time and Again.
The building features prominently in Lee Child's 2006 Jack Reacher novel The Hard Way.
Special Agent Aloysius X. L. Pendergast, a fictional character appearing in many novels by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, has an apartment at the Dakota.
David Aames, the protagonist in Cameron Crowe's 2001 movie Vanilla Sky is a Dakota resident, although only exteriors were shot in the building, all the interiors were shot on a sound stage
Tim Curry mentions the Dakota by name in his song "I Do the Rock".
Nas mentions the Dakota by name in his song "Thief's Theme" while talking about John Lennon
The Dakota is referenced in the Hole song, "20 Years In The Dakota".

Gene Simmons of Kiss sought residency in the Dakota in the late 1970's, but his request was turned down by the building's tenancy board.
John Lennon was shot in front of his residence, the Dakota, on December 8 1980 by Mark David Chapman.

Christine Lavin wrote and performs a song called The Dakota. In it she recounts her feelings about John Lennon's murder and how she is compelled to think of the incident every time she passes the building.
Brand New mentions the Dakota in their song "Play Crack the Sky" from the album Deja Entendu.
Stereophonics have a song named Dakota from the album Language.Sex.Violence.Other?.

Education

The Dakota residents are assigned to schools in the New York City Department of Education.

The Dakota is zoned to P.S. 87 William Sherman. The Dakota is unzoned for middle school; residents may contact Region 10 to determine the middle school assignments.

Famous residents

Well-known residents of the Dakota building have included:

actress Lauren Bacall
composer/conductor Leonard Bernstein
rock star Bono and his activist wife Ali Hewson
newscaster Connie Chung
sportsman F Ambrose Clark who was also grandson of the original builder
actor José Ferrer
singer Roberta Flack
author Charles Henri Ford
actress Judy Garland
actress Judy Holliday
playwright William Inge
actor Boris Karloff
judge/boxing referee Mills Lane
composer/singer John Lennon
singer Sean Lennon, son of John and Yoko
football announcer John Madden
author Carson McCullers
dancer Rudolf Nureyev
artist Yoko Ono
talk-show host Maury Povich
comedienne Gilda Radner
critic Rex Reed
film and television producer Edgar J. Scherick
singer / songwriter Paul Simon

References

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.
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, 1987, c1975. (Avery Reserves and Reference AA 7860 AL 741) Exterior views and sample floor plans as well brief historical synopsis, each with architect, builder, date built, and when applicable, date razed.