The Dakota

It wasn't until this morning that I got my camera back into working condition, so I have yet to take a single picture of a single cool old building. But I don't want to keep my adoring public waiting any longer so I figured I might as well put up a picture that I didn't take of an incredibly cool old building.

This is the Dakota, an apartment building at 72nd St. and Central Park West. It is beautiful and creepy and dripping with historic and cultural significance. I get a little chill every time I get out of the subway at 72nd St. and find myself in front of this haunting, looming castle.

Here are some reasons the Dakota is significant:

1. Perhaps most notably, this is where John Lennon was murdered in 1980. He and Yoko moved there in 1973 and she lives there still. If you cross the street and walk into Central Park you'll arrive pretty quickly at an area of the park called Strawberry Fields, designated as a memorial for Lennon. Once I walked through there on what I didn't realize would have been his 64th birthday. A big group of people were standing around the "Imagine" mosaic, holding lit candles and singing Beatles songs.

2. The movie Rosemary's Baby, which is one of my all-time favorites, was filmed here. If you haven't seen the movie, stop whatever you're doing and see it right now. Mia Farrow plays Rosemary, but I think the real star is the Dakota.

3. Time and Again is a really really excellent book. It's about time travel but without any sci-fi or fantasy involved: the main character goes back in time using only the power of his mind. He uses the Dakota as the place where he goes to sever all the ties that bind him to the present (well, 1970) so he can slip back into 1880s New York.


I've always heard that the Dakota is so named because back when it was built in 1884 it was so far uptown that people felt it might as well have been in the Dakota Territory, but according to Wikipedia this is probably not true and it's more likely because the building's owner was into Western and Native American names. I like the other story better. But which ever one's true, this picture on the right shows you just how unrecognizable the city was barely over a hundred years ago.

Anyway. The Dakota: a cool old building if there ever was one.