What are the opening hours?

Monday 9am - 6pm Tuesday 9am - 6pm Wednesday 9am - 6pm Thursday 9am - 6pm Friday 9am - 6pm

Landmark West

Call Directions Website Contact the organization

An architecture & culture non-profit doing education, research & advocacy on the Upper West Side.

10/10/2026

We brought you the UWS most spectacular ghost building last time and now we bring you the most haunted building in New York City: the Dakota. The iconic apartment building, which lies on Central Park West and 72nd Street, was built between 1880-1884 by Henry Janeway Hardenberg. At that time, the Upper West Side remained a sparsely populated enclave north of the city, and the Dakota was one of the earliest luxury structures luring New Yorkers uptown.

The building has a primarily German Renaissance style, but with lots of French influences. The high gables, dormer windows, balconies, bulstrodes, and terracotta decorations give it a distinctly European flair. Every apartment inside has a different layout, all surrounding a square courtyard.

But its beautiful architecture is not the only explanation for the Dakota’s iconic place in New York’s imagination. If you believe the stories, it has more spirit than any other building in the city. There are reports of ghostly children roaming the halls, including a little boy who paces up and down, and a girl wearing a yellow taffeta dress. She has happily declared it to be her “birthday” to surprised residents. More eerily, a construction worker reported the vision of a grown man with a little boy’s face, staring. If you are unlucky enough to find yourself in the basement, be prepared to dodge a heavy shovel flying off the walls at you, or the sight of the developer Edward Cabot Clark’s ghost.

The Dakota’s most famous spectral presence is surely John Lennon, the Beatles legend who was murdered in the building’s entrance in 1980. His wife Yoko Ono still lives in the building, and reported the vision of her late husband playing the piano in their home. He turned to her and, touchingly, spoke to her: “Don’t be afraid, I am still with you.”

This October, we are highlighting haunted or "ghost" buildings on the Upper West Side. You can always visit our website, www.landmarkwest.org, for more resources and research into the Upper West Side's lost stories.

10/07/2026

Welcome back to our Necrology series, today we will look at one of the Upper West Side's most spectacular ghost buildings. The Schwab mansion, 1901-1948. Dare to peek inside?

Charles M. Schwab was a steel tycoon who wanted to build the grandest home New York City had ever seen. In 1901, he paid $865,000 for the entire block of land between Riverside Drive and West End Avenue, 72nd and 73rd. It was the most money anyone had ever paid for land in the city. While most of the city’s elite had their homes on fashionable Fifth Avenue, the underdeveloped Upper West Side offered Schwab the chance to build a free standing mansion with sizable surrounding gardens.

The finished French Renaissance home had 75 rooms and elaborate gardens. It cost $3 million to build, not including the costs to furnish it. Schwab was a fan of designing rooms to a particular theme, like the Louis XIV style dining room or the Henry II inspired library. Lower levels contained a natatorium with a pool and arched glass roof, a bowling alley, and full gymnasium. It had its own power plant, in part to power air conditioning, an extreme luxury in the early 20th century. The mansion also had a staff of 20 servants, 6 elevators, and a 4 car garage. It was the largest house in Manhattan. It made quite an impression on Andrew Carnegie, reported to have commented, “Have you seen that place of Charlie’s? It makes mine look like a shack.”

All that opulence was not long for this world. The Great Depression bankrupted Schwab, leaving him unable to pay the property’s sizable taxes. He died in 1939, completely broke, after abandoning the house for a small apartment on Park Avenue. The mansion lay empty, ghostly and silent, for years. Eventually, it was demolished in 1948 and replaced with a complex of brick apartment buildings called the Schwab House.

This October, we are highlighting haunted or "ghost" buildings on the Upper West Side. You can always visit our website, www.landmarkwest.org, for more resources and research into the Upper West Side's lost stories.

10/05/2026

Join us on October 20th 2026 for our yearly Mumford Award! This year we are honoring Dr. Susan Weber, the founder and director of Bard Graduate Center for the Decorative Arts, Design History, and Material Culture (BGC) in New York.

In addition to her research and writing, she has curated many shows at the Bard Graduate Center Gallery and left an indelible mark on the Upper West Side through her adaptive reuse and restoration of several West 86th Street landmarks. Dr. Weber’s dedication to education, writing, arts, culture and community embodies the ethos of Lewis Mumford, and LANDMARK WEST! is pleased to honor her in 2026.

The Mumford Award is LANDMARK WEST!’s signature award named for the New York-based urban thinker, sociologist, historian, and critic Lewis Mumford (1895-1990), an influential and prolific writer and commentator on the culture and histories of cities and modern life. The award annually recognizes individuals dedicated to the urban environment of New York City. Whether by promoting understanding or advancing innovation and improvement, this individual’s efforts celebrate the city and prompt discourse and debate.

JOIN US THIS OCTOBER 20! Purchase tickets through the link in our bio. For questions, email [email protected].

10/03/2026

It’s October, and you know what that means…it’s officially spooky season! Here at Landmark West!, we celebrate by exploring ghosts across our neighborhood.

Is there something strange in your neighborhood? Who ya gonna call? LANDMARK WEST!

One of the Upper West Side’s most iconic buildings sits between 65th and 66th Streets at 55 Central Park West. Besides being an iconic feature of the Central Park West Historic District, it is perhaps best known for being the climatic setting of the 1984 film “Ghostbusters.” Spook Central was designed in 1929 by Schwartzman & Gross (no, not the insane Ivo Shandor). The architecture style was built to emphasize Art Deco forms, not to pull in a concentrating spiritual turbulence. In fact, it was the first fully Art Deco building on the street, featuring terracotta decorations, huge fluted projections on the base, heavy vertical lines, and changing color as it rises up. It was made a New York City landmark in 1990, 8 years after its historic district, of which it is a contributing structure, was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

Many prominent New Yorkers have passed through its doors. Famous residents of 55 Central Park West include Ginger Rogers, Donna Karan, Zuul the Gatekeeper, and Vinz Clortho the Keymaster.

This October, we are highlighting haunted or "ghost" buildings on the Upper West Side. You can always visit our website, www.landmarkwest.org, for more resources and research into the Upper West Side's lost stories.

09/24/2026

LW! is honoring Hispanic Heritage month by highlighting few organizations and people who have resided on the Upper West Side. From a cultural institution to a grassroots activist group, LW! celebrates the rich history they bring to the Upper West Side.

Slide 1: Ballet Hispanico, 167-171 West 89th Street
Originally built as horse stables this building transformed into the largest cultural institution in the United States that celebrates Latino culture through dance. The school's mission is to celebrate Hispanic culture through dance and community engagement. It has occupied the building since 1976. It is also on Landmark West! Wishlist of buildings to be designated as individual landmarked.

Slide 2: Tony Segura Residence, 23 Riverside Drive
Cuban Born and gay rights activist Tony Segura lived on the Upper West Side. He served as the Public relations director for the New York Area Council of Mattachine Society, The society was one of the most influential gay rights groups in the 1950s and 1960s.

Slide 3: El Comite, 569-579 Columbus Avenue
In 1979 a Puerto Rican National Left group called El Comité moved into 569 Columbus Ave for its headquarters. El Comité fought against displacement and urban renewal as well as advocating for housing practices and equal educational opportunities for immigrants. The group organized “operation move-ins” in vacant apartments in the Upper West Side. Although the group disbanded in 1984, it was successful in obtaining 2 vacant apartments from its operation move-in.

09/21/2026

5 Years. 10k+ units of housing. Where do they go?

Where We Live NYC Fair Housing Growth Strategy is a draft report published by the City’s Department of Housing Preservation & Development (HPD). The report calls for the Upper West Side to produce 10,075 units of housing in the next 5 years. For context, that is the equivalent of adding four Frederick Douglass Houses complexes, OR more than 23 Extell ABC supertalls, which translates to a 1,200% increase in housing unit growth for the district.

The Upper West Side is not an underdeveloped neighborhood awaiting large-scale urbanization. Its distinctive character is itself the product of an earlier period of intensive residential development. The result is one of Manhattan’s most sought-after and densely developed residential communities, with 179 people per acre, living in over 127,000 homes.

When applying an “every neighborhood must do its part” framework to housing production citywide, the question cannot simply be where additional housing can be accommodated, but how additional housing can be integrated into an existing neighborhood without sacrificing buildings, housing, and cultural history that make that neighborhood not only possible, but desirable.

Neighborhoods differ substantially in their existing density, available land, infrastructure, and physical character. A strategy that assigns production targets without adequately accounting for these differences fails to meaningfully engage with existing factors and defies basic planning principles. Read LW!'s letter to HPD on our blog or the link in bio.

08/24/2026

After a summer break, LW! presents our in person Book Talk with author Nick Yablon.

Explore Broadway as you have never before! Professor Yablon will share treasures from amateur photographer Charles Gilbert Hine's benchmark 1905 Photographic Survey of Broadway. Learn about the documentation that spanned from the foot of Broadway at Bowling Green on up to Inwood, with a special look at scenes from "The Boulevard" on the Upper West Side.

This program is live, in person, at Macaulay Honors College, 35 West 67th Street between Columbus Avenue and Central Park West.

Doors open at 5:30.

08/06/2026

Tuesday's LPC hardship hearing for West Park offered little clarity about the fate of the landmark church. However, Chair Lisa Kersavage did make one thing clear: she emphasized, "the demolition of the building is inherently inappropriate." The Commission did not focus its discussion on the historic value of the church but on whether the applicant has met the stringent legal standard for hardship, a determination, it seems, driven by an extensive financial analysis.

Since the Landmarks Law was adopted in 1965, 23 hardship applications have been filed, and 13 have been approved. On the Upper West Side, this has resulted in the loss of four landmarks thus far: Mt. Neboh Synagogue in 1981, and 351 Central Park West, 352 Central Park West, and 353 Central Park West, all in 1988. Every approval weakens the protections the Landmarks Law was intended to provide and sets a precedent that reaches far beyond a single building.

No vote was taken. General Counsel Mark Silberman will now prepare a draft determination for the Commissioners to review before a final decision. Notably, not all Commissioners participated in back-and-forth discussion.

Should a hardship be granted, the clock starts on a 180-day period when the Commission can seek alternatives, such as another buyer. In preservation, we are playing the long game. We will continue to monitor the process and keep you informed as this critical case moves, slowly, forward towards uncertainty. As George Michael said, we Gotta Have Faith.

06/30/2026

Landmark West! Wishes you a Happy Pride! To end the month off we want the Continental Baths.

Popular for its beautiful architecture, the Ansonia was also known in the 1960-70s for its flourishing basement. The Continental Baths was a social space for the LGBTQ+ community when homosexuality was still illegal in NYC. Inside was a cabaret and stage, restaurant, gym, licensed bar, STD clinic, clothing boutique, travel desk, and roof sun deck with sand from Riis Beach. Besides being a social space, the baths helped springboard emerging acts. Bette Midler famously made her start here. The Baths however saw a decline in LGBTQ+ members, with the venue catering to more straight audiences and ultimately closed in 1976.

🌈

06/28/2026

Did you know that renowned gay artist Andy Warhol lived on the UWS? In 1949, the emerging Warhol moved to 74 West 103rd Street, on Manhattan Avenue. He shared a sort of artists loft alongside 17 artists, writers and dancers. Warhol discovered his sexuality while living here, according to biographer Victor Bockris. “For Andy, as for others, the ‘lavender’ social circle which flourished underground in New York, and increasingly became part of his life during and after his stay on Manhattan Avenue, was a means of survival.” Today, Warhol’s former residence was one of two West Side Urban Renewal survivors and is part of NYCHA’s Frederick Douglass houses.

Address

45 W 67th Street
New York, NY
10023

Opening Hours

Monday	9am - 6pm
Tuesday	9am - 6pm
Wednesday	9am - 6pm
Thursday	9am - 6pm
Friday	9am - 6pm

Telephone

(212) 496-8110

Website

http://www.landmarkwest.org/, https://linktr.ee/landmarkwest

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Landmark West posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Organization

Send a message to Landmark West:

Heart River Center for Intuitive Healing

Want your organization to be the top-listed non profit organization in New York?