The Dakota was constructed between 1880 and 1884 in the German Renaissance style and was designed by Henry Janeway Hardenbergh for businessman Edward Cabot Clark.

[7] The Dakota's developer Edward Cabot Clark, who headed sewing machine firm Singer Manufacturing Company, selected the building's site based on several characteristics.

[19] The two developments were part of Clark's larger plan for a cohesive neighborhood;[20] the row houses were in the middle of the block, where land values were lower, whereas the Dakota was built on the more valuable site next to Central Park.

[23][26] Christopher Gray of The New York Times described the Dakota as one of several apartment buildings that were famous enough "to maintain their names simply in common custom".

[32][39][43] The main courtyard also functioned as a meeting area for residents, since the rest of the building was designed with "the utmost in personal privacy" as a consideration.

[90] Apartments had a reception area, a drawing room, a library, a kitchen, a pantry, a bath, four bedrooms, one full bathroom, and butlers' and maids' quarters.

[79][75] In the book New York 1880, architect Robert A. M. Stern and his co-authors wrote that Clark's apartment was intended to attract row house occupants by "dramatiz[ing] the value of height".

The kitchens and bathrooms contained modern fixtures, though other decorations such as moldings, woodwork, and floor surfaces were similar to those in many row houses.

[98] Artist Giora Novak occupied a minimalist space within the building's former dining room, which he decorated with his own artwork,[98][99] while interior designer Ward Bennett repurposed a servant's living area under the roof as a studio.

[25] Major developments on the West Side were erected after the Ninth Avenue elevated line opened in 1879, providing direct access to Lower Manhattan.

"[38][30][110] In the decade before the Dakota was built, the city's population had increased by at least 100 percent, but the Upper West Side contained only a few assorted saloons, inns, and other buildings.

[117] In 1879, Clark announced plans for an apartment complex at the intersection of 72nd Street and Eighth Avenue[27] (the latter of which was renamed Central Park West in 1883[9]).

[29][118] In early October 1880, about two weeks before construction began, the Real Estate Record and Guide reported that the building was to be a "residential hotel" with between 40 and 50 suites, each with five to twenty rooms.

[9] The earliest recorded appearance of this claim was in 1933, when the Dakota's longtime manager told the New York Herald Tribune: "Probably it was called 'Dakota' because it was so far west and so far north".

[53] The Real Estate Record said the next month: "The 'Dakota' is at last near completion and is receiving its finishing touches prior to its opening in May, when it will be quite ready for dwelling purposes.

[12][136] Elizabeth Hawes wrote that Clark promoted the Dakota as offering "convenience, a short-cut route to opulent living with none of the problems of upkeep, and at a fraction of the expense that went with owning a private house".

[77] A law, restricting the height of large apartment houses in New York City to 80 feet (24 m),[141][e] passed the year that the building was completed.

[144] According to the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC), the Dakota, along with the American Museum of Natural History several blocks north, helped establish the "early character" of Central Park West.

[147] The Dakota's completion spurred the construction of other large apartment buildings in the area,[144][147] several of which were named after regions in the western United States.

[56] The Dakota's board of directors announced in 1974 that the roof would need to be replaced, since the slate tiles had started to fall off and the copper trim had deteriorated.

[169] The Dakota gained attention when John Lennon, a resident and former member of the rock band the Beatles, was shot dead outside the building on December 8, 1980.

[219] Other rules include a restriction against leaving more than one car unattended in the driveway; a prohibition on "dance, vocal or instrumental instruction" in apartments; and a restriction on playing musical instruments or using a phonograph, radio, or TV loudspeaker between 11 p.m. and 9 a.m.[219] Residents cannot throw away their apartments' original fireplace mantels or doors and must instead put them in a storage area in the basement.

[184] On numerous occasions, the board has refused to allow high-profile personalities to move into the building, including musicians Gene Simmons,[220] Billy Joel,[221] Carly Simon,[222] Madonna, and Cher, as well as baseball player Alex Rodriguez, and comedian Judd Apatow.

[224][225] Former resident Albert Maysles, who had unsuccessfully tried to sell his unit to Melanie Griffith and Antonio Banderas, told The New York Times in 2005: "What's so shocking is that the building is losing its touch with interesting people.

[234] On the Dakota's 50th anniversary, the New York Herald Tribune described the building as standing "firmly on its unimpeachable foundations; somewhat shorter than its neighbors but immeasurably more impressive".

A New York Times article in 1959 described the Dakota's design as ranging "Victorian Kremlin" to "Middle Eastern Post Office",[86] while Look magazine called the building a "maze of imaginative, distinctive living".

[81] Architect Robert A. M. Stern wrote in 1999: "The Dakota was an undisputed masterpiece, far and away the grandest apartment house of the Gilded Age in New York and rivaling, if not exceeding, in logic and luxury any comparable building in Paris and London".

[38] Christopher Gray said in 2006 that "The Dakota remains Mount Olympus in the mythology of New York apartment houses, its baronial majesty the gauge by which all others must be judged.

[79][237] American Architect had only one complaint: "The service-entrances to the suites are situated upon the same court-yard, so that grocers' wagons and ice-carts are almost always to be seen standing about in the space which should be reserved exclusively for more fashionable equipages, and for the promenades of the tenants of the house.

[242] The American Institute of Architects' 2007 survey List of America's Favorite Architecture ranked the Dakota among the top 150 buildings in the United States.