So Taunia went with her friend Sarah to a fundraiser at the famed Dakota building the other day. I was envious, because the Dakota is one of my favorite buildings in the city, and it is steeped in tradition.
It's an apartment on the city's Upper West Side. But it's not just any old apartment building. It was home to John Lennon and Yoko Ono. And it was here, outside the front entrance to the building (pictured above), where Lennon was shot and killed by Mark David Chapman in 1980. (Yoko Ono, by the way, still has an apartment here. I asked Taunia to look for it... but it was on the other side of the building, and she didn't know which apartment number it was).
John and Yoko aren't the only people who make this place famous. The movie "Rosemary's Baby" was set here, and the following celebrities have at one time called the Dakota home:
Lauren Bacall, Leonard Bernstein, Connie Chung, José Ferrer, Roberta Flack, Judy Garland, Steve Guttenberg, Boris Karloff, John Madden, Rudolf Nureyev, Maury Povich, Gilda Radner, Neil Sedaka, Jason Robards.
(Both Billy Joel and Gene Simmons from "Kiss" sought residence in the Dakota back in the 70s, but were turned down by the building's co-op board.)
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