What Is The History Of The Only Murders Building?

The show Only Murders In The Building has gained popularity and is currently refreshed for its season 2. The actors included in the show are Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez. They are residents of a building who become amateur sleuths with a podcast. But did you know there was actually history behind the Only Muders building in real? The building shown in the show is the Belnord and it is in news for a century now. Let us know more about the building below. 

About the building: History

The building is known as Arconia where all the characters live. Since it was built, Belnord was a newsmaker. It was a home for the richer than the rich.

The building was finished in 1909 and it covered a full city block at West Street and Broadway.

The architect then boasted that the apartment was the first largest building in the country.

The interior courtyard of the building was said to be the biggest in Manhattan. It had a half-acre open space, with a garden or a lawn. 

The building boasted spacious rental apartments, 175 of them to be precise. Each was 50 feet deep. 

The apartments were decorated in the style of Louis XVI. 

The refrigerators had ice machines, so no iceman would ever invade the Belnord. 

On the roof, each apartment had a private laundry, a low-tech luxury that included a tub, ironing board and clothesline.

It was its own city, with a population of more than 1,500.  

Famous people who stayed in this building:

Lee Strasberg, the dictatorial father of Method acting, who was often visited by Marilyn Monroe; 

Walter Matthau, when he was an up-and-coming theatre actor with a young family; 

Zero Mostel, who played Tevye in the original Broadway production of “Fiddler on the Roof”

Isaac Bashevis Singer, the Nobel Prize-winning author.

Owners of the Building and the scandals surrounding it:

The building was owned by Lillian Seril. She was known as New York city's worst landlord. The building had a 16-year-old tenant strike which made it worse for its name. 

It has been the longest rent strike in the history of New York. By the 1970s, ornate limestone-and-terra-cotta structure was crumbling, the roof was leaking and the plumbing cracked. Ceilings were collapsing. 

In 1994, Gary Barnett, who was then only 38, bought the building with a group of investors for $15 million.

Extell had to spend 100 million dollars for the fix-up purposes which made the tenants pay even more later. The building was again sold for $757 million to HFZ group. They turned it into condos and sold them for between 3 million to 11 million dollars. 

Why was this building chosen for the Only Murders series?

This building was chosen by the creator of the show Only murders in the building because of his obsession with it. John Hoffman believes he cannot witness a building better and more magnificent than this one. 

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