(Flickr/wallyg)
One West 72nd Street has a famously choosy co-op board and fascinating history.

The late 19th-century Dakota building is one of Manhattan's most mysterious and exclusive residences.

Stories of ghost sightings have loomed around the building — located at 72nd Street and Central Park West — for years.

But even more intimidating than its haunted rumors is the Gothic-style building's picky co-op board, which has made a sport of rejecting rich and famous applicants.

Here are the 15 most fascinating facts about The Dakota, from past to present.

John Lennon was shot dead in front of The Dakota by a crazed fan

On December 8, 1980 Lennon was assassinated by Mark David Chapman outside of The Dakota. He died at Roosevelt Hospital at the age of 40 after releasing his album, "Double Fantasy."

Yoko Ono still lives in The Dakota and says she saw Lennon's ghost there

Ono and late husband Lennon moved into The Dakota in 1973. Ono stayed in the building after Lennon's death and, according to the New York Post's Page Six, saw her husband's ghost sitting at his white piano. She says he told her, “Don’t be afraid. I am still with you.”

When he was alive, Lennon told Ono that he saw a "crying lady ghost" in the building

The Beatles musician told his wife he'd seen the ghost roaming the halls.

The building has no fire escapes

Architect Henry J. Hardenbergh purposely avoided fire escapes by slathering mud from Central Park between the layers of brick flooring to fireproof and soundproof the building.

Tenants are 'forbidden' to throw away original doors and fireplace mantels

If tenants want to rid apartments of these items, there is a special storage area.

(Wikimedia Commons)
The Dakota, circa 1890.

The original owner's former apartment has sterling-silver floors

Singer Sewing Machine Company founder Edward Clark commissioned The Dakota as a $1 million apartment building for 60 families, including his own. Unfortunately, Clark died in 1882, two years before the building was completed.

According to legend, it gets its name from its far-west location

People liked to joke that it might as well have been built in the Dakotas.

It's been a magnet for the rich and famous since it opened in 1884

The building was reportedly fully rented before it even opened, thanks to a glowing New York Times review. The Steinway family, of Steinway piano fame, was one of The Dakota's first residents. Although he died in 1883, Peter Tchaikovsky is said to have lived there (perhaps he lived in it before its completion). Actress Lauren Bacall owned a nine-room apartment for 53 years that recently sold for $23.5 million.