On December 8, 1980, John Lennon was shot and killed at the entrance of the Dakota.  This was one of many tragic events in the Dakota. Edward Clark who was the head of the Sewer Singer Sewing Machine company wanted to turn the Upper West Side into a magnet for the well-to-do the way the Upper East Side had become. He commissioned Henry James Hardenbergh who would later design the Plaza Hotel. Clark died in 1882, two years before the building was completed in 1884.   Peter Tchaikovsky bought an apartment here but died in 1883. Judy Garland spent the last two years of her life here before dying of breast cancer. Not surprisingly, there are many stories of ghost sightings here.  

Where nearby buildings are partly famous for their celebrity residents, the Dakota is perhaps more famous for the people its rejected – Billy Joel, Madonna, Gene Simmons and Antonio Banderas were all told ‘no thank you.’