Changing tastes: Pre-war buildings in NYC languishing, just like older Greenwich mansions

that was then

Sales at the Dakota are slow, because younger buyers want the amenities (and, probably, the less restrictive ownership rules) of younger condos

The Dakota — constructed in 1884 on Central Park West and 72nd Street as America’s first-ever luxury apartment building — has long boasted well-heeled residents with glitzy homes to match. In 2015, for instance, it nabbed a flurry of headlines for the $21 million sale of late starlet Lauren Bacall’s nine-room, park-facing residence, which spent less than a year listed.

But a handful of other apartments there have faced longer spells on the market and a number of price cuts before entering contract or being delisted. From one perspective, the Dakota may now be a place where savvy buyers can find a relative deal — should the notoriously strict co-op board approve them, of course.

At the same time, the lingering, discounted units indicate that the city’s high-end prewar co-op market is losing its luster, in part because it faces intense competition from new condo developments.

To my taste, the Dakota wins hands down over the sterile condo units in NYC, and I also prefer (some of) the older homes here in Greenwich, but that's no longer the market. Just as new buyers don't want their grandparents'  "brown furniture" (that would be handmade, beautifully crafted pieces from the 18th century), they don't want the houses that furniture sits in. Their loss, says I, but there you have it.