Welcome! Here are the website rules, as well as some tips for using this forum.
Need to contact us? Visit https://heatinghelp.com/contact-us/.
Click here to Find a Contractor in your area.

Dead Men Tales: Heating John Lennon’s Apartment

HeatingHelp
HeatingHelp Administrator Posts: 635
edited March 2021 in THE MAIN WALL



Heating John Lennon’s Apartment

In this episode, Dan Holohan takes us to NYC’s Dakota Apartments, where John Lennon once lived. It has a circa-1880 steam heating system and was home to one of the world’s first co-generation systems.

Listen and subscribe here.

Thank you to our sponsor SupplyHouse.com
LS123Rusty2

Comments

  • SteamCrazy
    SteamCrazy Member Posts: 100
    Another great story Dan. Thanks for sharing.
    Erin Holohan HaskellPC7060
  • Bigb
    Bigb Member Posts: 4
    Thanks for the interesting history lesson.
  • ReLoGal
    ReLoGal Member Posts: 0
    Love the story and the telling. “Double hung zone valves” made me laugh out loud.
  • detroitslumlord
    detroitslumlord Member Posts: 28
    Another great steam heating story from the master !
  • TomP
    TomP Member Posts: 11
    Great story. A man's gift makes room for him, and brings him before great men. Thanks for taking us along.
    gassyman
  • ChrisHawkins
    ChrisHawkins Member Posts: 6
    Great story again. One little tidbit about the Dakota that always intrigued me was under the pump room that I worked in was the large reservor for the steam driven water elevators that were long gone. My boss would tell stories about repacking the pumps with steam blowing all over the place. There are many very interesting old building in the city.
    DerheatmeisterRusty2
  • zeppyfrog
    zeppyfrog Member Posts: 1
    Steam comes from big pipes from street?

    Any pipe bangin goin on here? Do corks need replacing alot? So is heat thermostatically controlled?
  • Anthony Menafro
    Anthony Menafro Member Posts: 198
    I always love to hear your tales. Reading them myself doesn't have the same effect! Thanks for sharing!!
  • TimothyLynch
    TimothyLynch Member Posts: 1
    Great Story :)
  • kbob12
    kbob12 Member Posts: 1
    Great read! Thanks for sharing! Cheers!
  • TAG
    TAG Member Posts: 755
    Was this an old article -- or part of one of the books?

    I know that building well .... they rented from Robert Ryan .. may have even been a sublet. She still lives there
  • DanHolohan
    DanHolohan Member, Moderator, Administrator Posts: 16,513
    Thanks to all of you for listening! 

    Retired and loving it.
  • Trey
    Trey Member Posts: 1
    Great read!
  • DDDennis
    DDDennis Member Posts: 1
    Fantastic experience. Imagine…………
    Grallert
  • markdelzell
    markdelzell Member Posts: 11
    the pumps for the 3 story waterfall heats up the water, needs a small chiller to cool water to allow moisture in air to condensate into the water. recycling it back into the system.
  • jblum
    jblum Member Posts: 7
    The Dakota brings members when I used to tag along with my father in the early 1970s. My father, Donald J Blum PE, designed the boiler plant that was shoehorned into the Dakota's cellar to replace the cogen power plant that stood next door. I remember see the project drawings that were done meticulously in ink. They were a work of art suitable for framing.

    My father's father was also a mechanical engineer in NYC and the namesake for my company, Joseph K Blum Co. He was a combustion engineer with a specialty in the design of devices to automatically pulverize coal and feed it into the boilers of the day. My father converted those heating plants to oil and I later got to convert them to natural gas. In another generation a lot of buildings are supposed to convert gas to electricity.

    Jim Blum PE
    New York.
    Mad Dog_2Rusty2Grallert
  • DanHolohan
    DanHolohan Member, Moderator, Administrator Posts: 16,513
    Thanks for sharing that, Jim!
    Retired and loving it.
  • Mad Dog_2
    Mad Dog_2 Member Posts: 6,831
    I've always admired The Dakota. Never had the pleasure of going in.   I've been to Strawberry 🍓 Fields on his anniversary  December 8th 1980, right?  I was 12. One of the great Plumbers that I learned under, John J Nolan (US Navy) did a renovation in John and Yoko's Apartment...mid 1970s,  I'd Say.  John would greet the workmen every morning stark naked, smoking 🚬 a cig and always offered them ☕ Coffee.  A real regular bloke, he was.  Mad Dog 
    Rusty2
  • tim smith
    tim smith Member Posts: 2,752
    Dan, do you have any photos of the radiators in the Dakota. Just interested in seeing what they put in.
    Thanks
    Tim
  • DanHolohan
    DanHolohan Member, Moderator, Administrator Posts: 16,513
    I don't have digital photos, but they were Reed radiators. Just like this one.
    J R Reed Radiator EDR — Heating Help: The Wall
    Retired and loving it.
    Rusty2Mad Dog_2