The Address by Fiona Davis

The city of New York is iconic in the history of the United States.  The Big Apple has been the crown jewel of locations for the rich and famous to live for centuries.  The Rockefeller’s, The Astors, The Vanderbilts were the gentry of New York and lived in luxury in the 1800s. Luckily, the American dream was not limited to the super wealthy.  In 1879 Edward Clark began his dream building project, a place where wealthy upper middle class people could live in a communal setting where each individual family would have their own apartment, but all would share the amenities of an onsite chef, barber, cleaners, tailor and maid services.  This building was known as The Dakota. Each owner designed their apartment and added any and all features that they deemed necessary.  The apartments ranged from four rooms to twenty; there were no two alike. The Dakota was located across from a park we now know as Central Park, but it was at that time quite a distance from what was considered the heart of the city.  Never the less, the building was occupied immediately and had a waiting list of those eager to move in.  Fiona Davis in her historical fiction novel, The Address, used the Dakota as the setting around which she built her story.  In the novel, Davis wove together lives of characters who lived hundreds of years apart, but who were mysteriously connected.  The author spent a great deal of time addressing the emotional termoil that people create when they constantly seek to live up to the life of the “Jones.”  Davis also showed the destructive nature of people in dealing with others of different social class, ethnicity, and wealth status as well as the almost inherent need to maintain control and dominance over those we deem lesser or inferior.  The Dakota became the symbol of the divide between the haves and the have nots.  This book revealed much about the plight of women, children, servants and misfits during the 1880s but it also demonstrated that even though things have changed and improved for those groups, there is still a chasm that separates us.  The history of The Dakota and the people who lived in it made this book a unique peek into their lives that in so many ways mirror our own.  As readers, we are able to see the struggles of all people, then and now, as they try to find their place in the world.