The Dakota: 1 W 72nd St, New York City

Julianna mentioned in her presentation today that part of Jack Finney's Time and Again is set at the Dakota apartment building on Central Park West. The Dakota is arguably the most famous apartment building in the country. Many famous performers, including John Lennon, lived there. Lennon was shot dead outside the building by a crazed fan in 1980. The Dakota is also one of the most expensive. According to the real estate website, these are average costs of the condos there:

4 Bedrooms from $18,500,000
3 Bedrooms from $14,500,000
1 Bedroom from $5,900,000

(For sake of comparison, you could buy 10-room mansion with all amenities on a 10-acre lot for under $5.9 million in Cincinnati.)

Here are some excerpts from an article describing the Dakota:

The city's most legendary apartment building, the Dakota is a massive fortress-like structure with a large center courtyard and very large apartments with very high ceilings.

With an impressive, arched entrance with sentry box flanked by large planters, the buff-colored building is surrounded by a very attractive and dramatic low cast-iron fence in front of a "dry moat." The four corners of the courtyard, which has a fountain, lead to separate lobbies and passenger elevators. (Service elevators run up the middle of each side of the building.)

The building exudes solidity as well it should since its bottom walls are 28 inches thick, but its profusion of architectural elements and pale yellow brickwork that contrasts with dark brown masonry at the corners produce a lively and graceful appearance of considerable visual interest because of the mix of gables, arches, balconies, oriel windows, dormers, finials and other ornamentation including a flagpole at the top of its park facade.


When it was built in 1884, it towered over the Upper West Side and was an immediate success with all its apartments rented on opening day. Its developer, Edward Severin Clark, an heir to a sewing machine fortune, died two years before it opened. The building's name allegedly reflected the fact that the building was so far removed from the city's established luxury residential areas that it might as well be in the Dakota territory. Its 72nd Street façade, indeed, has an image of a Native American carved on its façade.

Designed by Henry J. Hardenbergh, who would later design the Plaza Hotel, the building had tennis courts and a croquet field on the adjoining 175-foot-long lot on West 72nd Street that was later developed after World War II as a separate apartment building.

Many of residents of its cooperative apartments have been celebrities including John Lennon, the Beatle who was shot outside the building in 1980, Leonard Bernstein, the composer and conductor, Lauren Bacall, the actress, Judy Garland, the singer, William Inge, the playwright, Jo Mielziner, the stage designer, Rex Reed, the columnist.

The 93-unit building's Victorian and Gothic architectural details and ambiance were featured in the popular spooky movie, "Rosemary's Baby," but it is famed more now for its spectacular apartments.

The Dakota is also ranked as New York City’s #7 Most Haunted Place. Many eerie stories are linked with 1 West 72nd Street. In the 60's, the construction workers were said to have seen a ghost of a young boy dressed in a way outdated outfit. And, needless to say, John Lennon was murdered while exiting the front door—some believe that his ghost also visits it from time to time.