Although it appears foreboding, the Dakota Building is an iconic landmark that has become one of the most sought after private residences in New York City. This location of John Lennon’s assassination (1980) and the scene of Roman Polanski’s film “Rosemary’s Baby” (1968), attracts seekers of spooky spiritual experiences along its sidewalk. The Dakota has had a long history of being haunted, going back to stories from the 1960s, if not earlier.
The little girl
One of these Dakota spirits is that of a strange little girl, reportedly first seen by workmen sometime in the 20th century. Painters working in the hall saw a girl with long blonde hair and dress of an earlier time bouncing a ball. None of them saw her before and she didn’t fit descriptions of children who lived there or of guests.
“A beautiful blond child suddenly appeared in the corridor, wearing high white stockings, patent leather shoes with silver buckles, and a dress of yellow taffeta that seemed to come from another century,” wrote Stephen Birmingham in Life at the Dakota. “She was bouncing a red ball. ‘It’s my birthday’ she said and, still bouncing her ball she disappeared down the corridor.
The description of the little in the yellow dress matched no child then in the building, and she has never been identified.” The little girl is still seen by residents today, “greeting them with a smile and a wave” from lower floor windows, reported a 2015 ABC News article.
The boy
A ghost with a little boy’s face also apparently paid a visit to the building as well. It happened in the 1960s, when a construction workers working near the apartments stated they saw a figure with the body of a man but the face of a young boy. This creepy specter didn’t say anything but made the workers feel “like they were being closely watched.
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 put it against the light bulb.
The man with the wig
Another ghost, “the man with the wig,” might have been that of the man who developed the Dakota, Edward Cabot Clark. This apparition—with a short beard, large nose, and wire glasses, not unlike Clark’s—visited an electrician in the basement in the 1930s four times. Each time, “the man glared fiercely at for several moments, then reached up, snatched off the wig he was wearing and shook it angrily in the electrician’s face,” wrote Birmingham, adding that Clark indeed wore a wig. Apparently Clark, who died before the Dakota was finished, wasn’t all that jazzed about this electrician screwing with his building.
John Lennon
In 1983, Joey Harrow, a musician who lives near to the Dakota Building, claimed he saw John’s ghost in the Dakota entrance doorway, the spot where he’d been shot three years previously. “He was surrounded by an eerie light,” he claimed. At the time of the sighting, he was accompanied by a writer called Amanda Moores, who confirmed that she had also seen the ghost. “I wanted to go up and talk to him, but something in the way he looked at me said ‘No’,” she said.
That wasn’t the only Lennon ghost experience. The most reliable and believable sighting of John Lennon’s ghost comes from his wife, Yoko. She saw him seated at his piano in their apartment. He looked at her and said: “Don’t be afraid, I am still with you.”
According to several Spiritualists, John’s spirit lingered on Earth for a short time before a group of spirit Guides helped him to adjust to the ‘other’ world. A person who won’t ‘let go’ after they are dead becomes a ghost who haunts the area of the tragedy. The Guides convinced him to join them in the spirit world and various Mediums began receiving messages from him. Lennon periodically makes visits to the Dakota still.
The crying lady
Before his death, John Lennon claimed to have his own paranormal experiences in the Dakota. Lennon told tales of seeing a spirit he called The Crying Lady walking the halls of the building. The going theory is that Lennon, and others who have seen this Crying Lady, are seeing the ghost of Elise Vesley, who managed the Dakota through the 1930s, 40s, and 50s. Elise, who was way into the paranormal herself, believed that she had psychokinetic powers and was a major player on the Vedantist movement.
As is often the story when it comes to ghosts, Mrs. Vesley suffered a great tragedy when her son was hit by a truck outside the Dakota. The boy died, and by all accounts, Mrs. Vesley was never the same again. She took to being extra nice, and extra protective of the children that lived in the Dakota. Maybe that is why she still walks the halls today – she just wants to make sure all the kids are doing OK. Or maybe she’s trying to help The Young Girl.
