Alpern (Holdouts! The Buildings That Got in the Way) explores the social and historical context, design, and engineering features of the legendary Dakota apartments, which preside over Central Park on Manhattan's Upper West Side. In the late 19th century a profusion of magnificent residences for the affluent were built in New York, of which the Dakota is arguably the jewel in the crown. Although many of these grand buildings were razed over the following decades, swept away for newer architectural visions, the Dakota still stands. The author's primary research delivers fascinating details culled from period newspapers, architectural drawings, and in-process construction and other historical photos of the building and neighborhood. Although many celebrities (notably John Lennon and Yoko Ono) have called the Dakota home, Alpern focuses on the building itself, the development of the surrounding neighborhood, and the previous innovative apartment designs that helped inspire the Dakota. VERDICT Readers will become engrossed in the grandiose visions and architectural innovations that grew out of an environment characterized by extremes of wealth and poverty. © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

The authors and photographer Kenneth Grant are to be commended for producing a book on the Dakota that rises to the majesty and iconic status of the great apartment building. A history of early New York apartment buildings; biographies of the architect, Henry J. Hardenbergh, and his builder, Edward Clark; an overview of the Upper West Side; the story of the building's construction; newly drawn plans of each of its ten floors, basement, and roof; stories of famous residents; and more fill the book's 15 chapters. Each chapter is lavishly illustrated with prints, drawings, vintage photographs, postcards, reprinted articles on selected apartments, and fine new photographs by Grant. Written by scholars with the enthusiasm of fans, the book offers everyone, from architectural historians to those who are merely curious, an appreciation of the Dakota's place in the history of the genre and a substantial look inside its famously impenetrable walls. Appendixes include reprints of ten articles on the Dakota and related subjects published in various venues in the 1870s and 1880s. Summing Up: Recommended. All readership levels. --Jack Quinan, independent scholar