The Dakota. It’s an odd name for a Manhattan building. This architectural marvel, located at Central Park West and 72nd Street on New York’s upper west side, was built between 1880 and 1884. Its name was due to the general feeling at the time that the upper west side was as remote as the Dakota Territory. Its high gables, terracotta features, and gargoyles give the Victorian era building an imposing presence, a hint of its opulence and mystery.
Today, The Dakota houses 64 co-op apartments that range from four to 20 rooms. The rich and famous have always lived here – Judy Garland, Leonard Bernstein, actress Lauren Bacall, author Carson McCullers. But the building is best known for being John Lennon’s last home and the site of his tragic murder on Dec. 8, 1980. According to several witnesses, Lennon’s ghost supposedly haunts the Dakota.
Three years after his death, Joey Harrow, a musician who lives near to the Dakota Building, and a friend, Amanda Moores, claimed they saw John’s ghost near the entrance to the Dakota where he was shot. He said he was “surrounded by an eerie light.” Moores said, “I wanted to go up and talk to him, but something in the way he looked at me said no.”
Psychic Shawn Robbins said she saw John’s ghost in the building and Yoko Ono was reported to have seen John sitting at his white piano. He turned to her and said, “Don’t be afraid. I am still with you.”
The Dakota has a long history of paranormal activity. Lennon himself said he encountered the apparition of a woman walking down the long halls of the building. He named her the Crying Lady Ghost. Other celebrities and notable figures who have lived in that building have also had very similar experienced. Maury Povich described the building as “very haunted.”
In 1965, three men repainting the walls and re-varnishing woodwork in an apartment felt they were being watched. One saw a ghost of a boy of about ten years old dressed in a Buster Brown suit, a style of the early 1900s. A musty odor accompanied the apparition. The three also saw a ghost that had the body of a male in his 20s and a face of a young child.
After the job was done, one of the painters was doing some touch-up work in a large closet. Suddenly, the door slammed and the light went out. He groped his way off the ladder, propped the door open and turned the light back on. He felt something grab his arm and push it against the light bulb.
Several years later, reports surfaced of a little girl in turn-of-the-century clothing who appeared to painters working in the building. She seems to be the most frequently witnessed apparition and is always friendly, often smiling at people, and approaching them as if to greet them.
There are some dark synchronicities surrounding the Dakota, though, that involve the 1968 Roman Polanski film, Rosemary’s Baby. It was filmed at the Dakota and within a year of the movie’s release, various tragedies occurred. The film’s composer Krzysztof Komeda died of a brain clot, which was how one of the characters in the film died. Producer William Castle suffered from uremic poisoning after the film was made and swore that the movie was cursed.
A year after the film was released, Polanski’s wife Sharon Tate and four others were killed in a ritualistic mass murder at their Benedict Canyon home by Charles Manson and his cult members. Tate was pregnant at the time and was stabbed repeatedly. Before leaving the house after the killings, one of the cult members took a rag soaked in Tate’s blood and wrote lyrics from Beatles songs.
Manson’s “family” called their murder spree Helter Skelter, after a Beatles song on the White Album. Manson apparently believed that the Beatles spoke to him through their lyrics, especially those included in the White Album, released in December 1968. Who could have known then that 13 years later, Lennon would be murdered outside the very building where the movie had been filmed and where Yoko Ono still lives.
