The Dakota, located in New York City, is one of the most
iconic buildings of all time. It was built between 1880 and 1884. The name “Dakota”
was said to come from how the building was so far away from everything because
it was on the upper west side of Manhattan, so essentially it was as far away
as the Dakota Territory. Edward Clarke was the creator of the Dakota building.
He wanted to introduce a new idea of living for the wealthy people in New York
City. The residents would live in a&nbsp;high-end flat instead of a house. Many New
York residents were unsure about living on the upper west side, but once the
Dakota was opened potential residents started pouring in. Over the years the
Dakota became one of the most famous residences to live in on the Upper West
Side. 

The Dakota’s architecture was unlike any other building in
New York City at the time that it was built. It was inspired by French Renaissance
and English Victorian styles. With magnificent looks on the outside, the
building was a model resident to live in, not to mention all the amenities that
came on the inside. There is 65 apartments in the building with four to 20
rooms within each flat. The rooms range in size, some are as long as 50 feet,
with ceilings up to 14 feet high. The floors are made of oak, mahogany, and
cherry. 

Future tenants have to go through many steps before being
considered to live in the&nbsp;building. Applicants have to turn in financial records
and tax documents, along with paying a fee of $1,000, and going through a thorough
background check. Even after going through all of those processes the board can
still deny the applicant from living there. Many celebrities have been denied
to live in the building. 

Though the Dakota is known for many magnificent features, it
is also known for a very tragic event. John Lennon, a musician, lived in the
building for many years with his wife Yoko. On October 8, 1980, Lennon was shot
on the sidewalk outside of the Dakota by Mark David Chapman. This event was the
reason why the board stopped allowing most people to move into the Dakota.

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The Dakota is one of Manhattan's most distinguished and impressive cooperative residential buildings. It has been home to a number of celebrities including Judy Garland, Leonard Bernstein, Joe Namath, and John Lennon. In December 1980, Lennon was shot just outside of the south entrance by Mark David Chapman. Since his death, the Dakota is frequented by fans of the Beatles' star. 

The Dakota Apartments, New York City

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Start at Central Park West & W. 69th Street & walk north for 10 blocks past historic apartment buildings including the infamous Dakota, a synagogue with deep roots, and end at two museums: N.Y. Historical Society and American Museum of Natural History.

The future location of The Brentmore appeared to still be farmland in 1863, across from the newly-created Central Park (see the attached image); while the unpaved W. 72nd Street (opposite an entrance to Central Park) and W. 71st Street were present, no hint of W. 70th or W. 69th Streets was evident. The entire block at the north edge of the farmland - bounded by Eighth Avenue (Central Park West), W. 69th Street, Ninth Street, and W. 70th Street - was auctioned off in early 1869 (see the map below). The lots where The Brentmore would be built were undeveloped in 1894 (see image below), although a number of small, brick buildings had been constructed on the side streets of the block.The architectural firm Schwartz and Gross designed in many styles, from Neo-Gothic to Art Deco. Bing &amp; Bing built The Brentmore, with a narrow open courtyard in the center, facing Central Park West, wedged between two wings, each three bays wide. The building shows elements of French Beaux Arts and Neo-Grec styles: garlands at windows, heavy foliated double brackets at the roofline, and angular posts in its balustrades. The three-story base is faced in rusticated limestone; the building has balconies on the 4th and 11th floors with wrought iron railings, and a projecting copper cornice. The windows are tripartite with vertical panes in the "Chicago" style. Schwartz &amp; Gross also designed high-rises at 55, 101, 241, and 440 Central Park West. If The Brentmore resembles its neighbor across W. 69th Street, at 91 Central Park West, that is because Schwartz &amp; Gross also were the architects behind 91, a highrise built in 1928 to 1929 in Beaux Arts and Neo-Renaissance styles.Yearly rent at The Brentmore in 1915 was around $3,750 for a three-bedroom "simplex" and $4,000 for a three-bedroom duplex apartment. Some units rented in 1917 for $2,100 for a 6-room apartment and $4,000 for nine rooms. The Brentmore was converted into a co-operative in 1959. The building has been home to a number of celebrities including actor Robert De Niro and musicians Paul Simon, Billy Joel, and Sting (Sting bought Joel's apartment). Apartment units range from 1,900 to 6,600 square feet and the soaring ceilings are 11 feet tall.

The Brentmore has towered over Central Park West since 1909. The apartment building was an early design by Schwartz and Gross, who went on to design many more apartment buildings in the city in the 1920s and 1930s. The architect Emery Roth added a penthouse pavilion in 1927. The Brentmore is a contributing resource in the Central Park West National Register Historic District, listed in 1982. The co-op currently contains 28 residential units; when it was built, there were 37 apartments.

The Brentmore

Though the congregation formed in 1654, it was not until a year later that the colony's governor, Peter Stuyvesant, gave it official permission to be established. However, they continued to face discrimination and were not allowed to worship anywhere for some time. Despite these difficulties Shearith Israel was able to&nbsp;establish a cemetery in 1656. Eventually, the congregation was able to find rented&nbsp;places to worship. This continued until 1730 when the first temple was built. The congregation built four other structures, including the current one, the coming decades.&nbsp;

Founded in 1654, Congregation Shearith Israel is the oldest Jewish congregation in North America. Its current temple is a historic structure built in 1897. The congregation, which has remained Orthodox since its inception, was the only one in New York until 1825. As such, it was the center of Jewish life for that entire time. It was founded by 23 Jews of Spanish and Portuguese origin living in Recife, Brazil. They traveled to New York (at that time it was a small Dutch colony called New Amsterdam) to escape the Inquisition bought by the Portuguese, who defeated the Dutch to capture control of Recife. The congregation today remains a center of Orthodox life in the city, offering educational and religious programming for children and adults, as well as other activities. 

Congregation Shearith Israel

The entire block from W. 70th and W. 71st Street between Eighth Avenue (Central Park West) and Ninth Avenue was put up for auction in early 1869; the block was part of the Harsen estate (see the map from the advertisement for the auction below). A. H. Muller of P.R. Wilkins &amp; Company was handling the auction of the "64 Central Park lots," scheduled for February 15th 1869. The east end of the block, where 101 Central Park West would be built, appeared to be part of farmland in 1863 when a scenic sketch map of the Central Park area was made. An 1866 map showed the former Harsen farm boundaries as reaching from about W. 69th to W. 73rd Street. Nearly every lot on three sides of the block contained a small brick structure by 1894 (see the map below); the lots fronting Central Park West contained several small, wooden buildings or were vacant.Bricken Construction Corporation built the apartment building at 101 Central Park West. The 17-story massive building is faced with brick above a limestone base and accented with terra cotta trim. The main entrance is flanked by Ionic columns under a broken pediment with an ornamental cartouche. The building is stepped back above the 12th floor, forming terraces edged in iron railings and sandstone urns. The three-part main facade is centered by a penthouse pavilion of three stories.Viewed from above, the footprint of the structure looks like a backwards "E" with two rear open courtyards. The layout of the units was in keeping with the "white glove" nature of the building, where separate quarters for live-in maids or nannies was included. Elevator operators whisked you away to your floor from the opulent, marble-filled lobby that covers the entire width of the huge structure. Most of the apartments are quite roomy, at over 2,000 square feet.The building became a co-operative in 1953. Actor Harrison Ford once lived at 101 Central Park West, as did television news anchor Peter Jennings. They continue the long tradition of upper-middle class and professional people who flocked to the towering residences overlooking Central Park to the east, beginning with the construction of The Dakota at the corner with W. 72nd Street in the 1880s. While the earlier buildings were limited in height by having load-bearing walls, 101 Central Park west is one of the high-rises that became possible with steel framing construction techniques and one of many on the block added in the 1920s to early 1930s.

The apartment building at 101 Central Park West is best seen from Central Park, where the set-backs of the upper floors of this structure can be fully appreciated. The Neo-Renaissance style building has taken up the entire block between W. 70th and W. 71st Streets since 1929. One of eight apartment buildings on this street designed by architects Schwartz and Gross, the upper floors were set back from Central Park West to comply with a 1916 zoning law that aimed to prevent tall buildings from blocking light from hitting adjacent buildings and the street. The 18-story building is now a co-op containing 94 units. 101 Central Park West is a part of the Central Park West Historic District, listed in the National Register in 1982.

Apartment Building at 101 Central Park West

Before the street grid was laid in this annexed part of New York, the land where The Langham would be built was owned by Sarah Magee and then Samuel Wells. Edward Clark, an executive with Singer Sewing Machine Company, bought lots along Eighth Street (later Central Park West) in 1877 between W. 72nd and W. 74th Streets in 1877. To lure the wealthy to occupy the West Side, he urged the West Side Association in 1879 to issue restrictive covenants and create exclusive residences. Clark set an example by building The Dakota Apartments (also a Clio entry) on Eighth between W. 72nd and W. 73rd from 1880 to 1884. Clark died in 1882, before The Dakota was finished. Ambrose Clark sold the eight lots on the block directly north of The Dakota to Abraham Boehm and Lewis Coon in 1902.The 12-bay wide Langham apartment building takes up the entire block from W. 73rd to W. 74th Streets between the Dakota and San Remo apartment buildings. Dawson &amp; Archer built the structure with a rusticated limestone base and brick above. Some of the units feature a wrought iron Juliet balcony. The slate and copper mansard roof features corner peaks, pedimented dormers, and oeil de boeuf (a fancy French name for a round window resembling the eye of an ox). The original floor plan of The Langham included only four apartments per floor; most have been divided into smaller units. Two specially-configured doctor's suites were available. The lobby was especially fancy, with crystal chandeliers, marble, bronze, and carved stone decoration. A driveway entrance off of 73rd Street allowed for carriage access. Yearly rents when the building opened in October 1906 were $4.500 and up.The Langham Apartments was purchased by Nat Natanson from the Greenhut estate and then quickly sold to Abraham Crosney and Joseph Freedman in 1919. A couple of electrical engineers named Louis K. Comstock and Edgar Ellinger purchased the building in late 1920. The interior of the Langhorne underwent major remodeling from 1958 to 1960. The building was still operating as rental apartments in the mid-1970s when it was documented for the New York State Division of Historic Preservation. The structure is part of the Central Park West National Register Historic District, listed in 1982. The historic district includes practically every building standing along Central Park West adjacent to Central Park except for a few modern replacements in the south end near Columbus Circle and one oddball 1960s style apartment building in the north half that does not blend in. Actress Mia Farrow and Musician Carly Simon are some of the most famous residents of The Langham. Early notable residents were actor Basil Rathbone and Irving Bloomingdale (son of the store founder).The building is now configured into rental apartments with from one to six bedrooms. Restored wood-paneled libraries and multiple fireplaces grace some of the units.

The apartment building overlooking Central Park at 135 Central Park West is The Langham. The 12-story French Beaux Arts style building was finished in 1906 and was designed by Clinton and Russell. Ads for the newly-opened building called The Langham the "latest and most magnificent, absolutely fireproof housekeeping apartment building in the City." Each suite of ten to eleven rooms with three baths was touted as "a private dwelling of the highest type." One nifty feature of the building was a mail delivery conveyor system direct to each apartment. Each apartment was connected to a central vacuuming chute - dubbed "pneumatic vacuum cleaning" and contained a wall safe. The Langham is part of the Central Park West Historic District and is still a rental building with 64 units currently.

The Langham

The San Remo is located on the Upper West Side of New York along Central Park West and has been home to famous artists and entertainers for nearly a century. Architect Emery Roth, founder of Emery Roth and Sons, famously designed more than 80 buildings in the Big Apple. Construction on the San Remo began in 1929, just before the market crashed and after New York enacted the Multiple Dwellings Act, allowing for residential buildings to be built with more stories permitting there were also larger yards added. It opened in 1930, at the beginning of the Depression, which left many of the apartments empty and forced the apartment building to file for bankruptcy. To make matters worse, the bank that held the San Remo's mortgage also went out of business and the building was sold over the existing mortgage for a remarkably low price. In an effort to rent out more apartments, many of the two-story apartments were subdivided, adding twenty more units to the building, to make them more affordable.The building itself is a U-shape that covers the entire block of Central Park West between 74th and 75th Streets. Roth designed the building where it set 70 feet away from the street on all sides. From Central Park, the twin towers, each one being ten floors on top of the bottom seventeen, are apparent but are not symmetrical. The twin towers were originally added to only cover water towers, but they eventually became so reflective of Roth's unique style they soon were his signature. Roth was inspired by Greek architecture and mimicked the style by adding two circular "temples" at the top of each tower and they were featured in the original Ghostbusters movie. The building is a light brick that is over a base of limestone. Italian-Renaissance style is also reflected in the stone, terracotta, and metal detail.A majority of the apartments have had few owners, therefore, much of the original Art Deco designs in the bathrooms have been untouched and kitchen features remain. Since its opening in 1930, many notable names have resided in the San Remo. Steve Jobs purchased an apartment that covered the top two floors of one of the towers, renovated it, and then sold it to Bono. Other famous names who have lived there include Steven Spielberg, Demi Moore, Dustin Hoffman, Zero Mostel, Rita Hayworth, Steve Martin, and Barry Manilow. The proximity to Central Park and such places as the Museum of Natural History and the New York Historical Society only adds to the appeal of the San Remo and continues to make it one of the most sought after apartment buildings in New York.

The San Remo Apartment Building is known as one of the more premier luxury apartment buildings in New York City. Besides offering luxury that few other apartment buildings offer, it is also filled with rich history. Legendary architect Emery Roth built the San Remo and he carried an extensive portfolio that includes more than 80 other buildings in New York. What made the San Remo unique was the incorporation of the twin tower concept, the first building to have this feature. The twin towers each hold ten floors, atop the lower seventeen floors, and this layout provided more access to air and light for tenants. Some of the notable residents of the San Remo Apartments have included: Steven Spielberg, Rita Hayworth, Zero Mostel, Steve Martin, Mary Tyler Moore, and many more. Due to its prime location on the Upper West Side and its luxury offered, the San Remo is one of the more sought after apartment buildings in New York. Through all of the decades of changes in the "city that never sleeps" and after some extensive renovations, the San Remo has remained true to its original unique design given by Roth. 

The San Remo 

<div>In the Museum, some of its highly regarded exhibits include&nbsp;WWII &amp; NYC, Grant and Lee in War and Peace, and Alexander Hamilton: The Man Who Made America, to name just a few. There is also an extensive art collection within the museum that contains over 1.6 million pieces of prized artwork from paintings by Rembrandt Peale to Thomas Cole. The collection includes Hudson River School paintings, genre and historical paintings, and even sculptures by artists like Elie Nadelman.&nbsp;</div><div> </div><div>The New-York Historical Society also contains the Patricia D. Klingenstein Library. According to the NY Historical Society website, the library contains more than three million books, pamphlets, maps, atlases, newspapers, broadsides, music sheets, manuscripts, prints, and architectural drawings. The collections within the library cover many periods of US History including the colonial times and the founding of the United States, as well as containing several documents pertaining to slavery and post-Civil War Reconstruction. Also housed within the massive collection of the Library are several artifacts covering 19th-century literature and poetry as well as several resources for research on various topics, such as education and philanthropy.&nbsp;</div><div> </div><div>The New-York Historical Library houses several programs, including The Henry Luce III Center for the Study of American Culture. It's located on the 4th floor of the museum and appeals especially to the visual senses by allowing visitors to browse over 40,000 historical artifacts all in one place. These include a vast collection of Tiffany lamps to a replica of what George Washington's campsite would have looked like during the Revolutionary War. &nbsp;It also contains some quirkier items, such as a vast collection of board games from the late 19th century. &nbsp;There are interactive sections and audio guides so visitors can be at ease while browsing the center. &nbsp;Other features of the New-York Historical Society include the DiMenna Children's History Museum and the New York Historical Society Education Center, which offers a wide variety of school programs to help equip young people with research skills.&nbsp;</div><div> </div>

The New York Historical Museum and Library was founded in 1804. It is the state's oldest museum and prides itself in offering historical documents on U.S. and New York history, exhibitions, and artwork. It is seventy years older than the Museum of Metropolitan of Art. The New-York Historical Society Museum functions as a place of research and fosters discussions on issues focusing on the making of history and historiography. 

New York Historical Society Museum and Library

Albert Smith Bickmore developed the proposal for the American Museum of Natural History. After gaining support, the Museum was created in 1869, and the first President was John David Wolfe. However, exhibits did not go up until 1971 in the Museum's first building on the eastern side of central park, which would later be abandoned for a larger location in Manhattan Square.&nbsp; Throughout the late 19th and early 20th century, the Museum was involved in groundbreaking projects of exploration that included expeditions to the North Pole, Siberia, Mongolia, Gobi, and the Congo. During this time, new sections of the Museum were also opened, including the African Mammals Hall and the Hall of Ocean Life. New halls would continue to open throughout the 20th century, making the Museum one of the most important research and public learning centers in the world.&nbsp; In the 1990s and 2000s, the Museum continued to grow, as it still does today, adding new attractions for visitors and researchers. New facilities for the Museum's research library were opened in 1992, a Zeiss Star Projector was built in 1999, and the Museum started hosting overnight stays for families with its A Night at the Museum program in 2006. By adding new exhibits and activities, along with continued projects of exploration, the American Museum of Natural History continues to push deeper into the realm of knowledge, providing a service to society that will not be forgotten.&nbsp;

Founded in 1969, the American Museum of Natural History has been one of the world's preeminent science and research institutions, renowned for its collections and exhibitions. The Museum consists of 25 buildings which are all interconnected. Throughout the Museum, there are 40 exhibition halls, providing tours for visitors and learning opportunities for adults and children alike. The Museum is committed to discovering and circulating information about cultures, nature, and the universe. 

Central Park West Historical Walking Tour from W. 69th St. to American Museum of Natural History

The Dakota Apartments, New York City

Introduction

Images

Backstory and Context

Sources

Additional Information