Lurid stories behind real ‘Only Murders’ blocks

With a second series of streaming comedy-crime-drama Only Murders in the Building underway, the true stories have emerged of the two famous – if not notorious – New York apartment blocks on which the “hero” building of the fictional series is based.

In “Only Murders…” Martin Short, Steve Martin, and Selena Gomez play crime-solving, podcasting residents of Upper West Side residence the Arconia.

But the real buildings linked with the series have even more lurid storylines of their own, featuring murder, sex, financial shenanigans plus showbiz and literary figures.  The appearance of Sting in the first series was more authentic than gimmick.

The series were filmed using the façade (and inspiration) of the 100-year-old Belnord building on New York’s Upper West Side. 

However the fictional  Arconia’s name and colourful residents seem just as closely linked to the Ansonia, a “legendary real-life luxury apartment building that occupies a full city block on Broadway between 73rd and 74th Street” according to a Vanity Fair feature.

“Made up of 17 stories and around 400 unique units, the [Ansonia] building is every New Yorker’s real-estate dream come true: Parisian-inspired with Juliet balconies, round turrets with gray terracotta details, and an opulent archway entry,” says the article.

“Inside are hardwood herringbone floors, floor-to-ceiling windows, and a sweeping marbled staircase spiraling beneath a grand domed skylight. Today, a 3,000-plus square foot, four-bedroom, three-bathroom unit in the building is listed for almost (US) $9 million.”

The Ansonia was founded in 1904 by infamous playboy William Earl Dodge Stokes who successfully sued his own brother for one million dollars after their mining magnate father died.

At 42, Stokes married 15-year-old heiress Rita Hernandez de Alba de Acosta, after he spotted her picture in a shop window.

Divorce

Having produced one heir for him, she walked away five years later with what was rumoured to be the largest divorce settlement on record at the time—$2 million in cash and $36,000 annually in alimony.

The land on which the Ansonia was built was previously part of the New York Orphan Asylum. Promoted as the “grandest hotel in Manhattan” when it officially opened, the Ansonia it had the world’s largest indoor pool, restaurants decorated in the style of Louis XIV, Turkish baths, a large fountain housing live seals, a ballroom, bank, barbershop, and tailor on-site.

An obsessive animal lover, Stokes kept four geese and a pig as personal pets in his apartment, while on the roof he had ducks, 500 chickens (fresh eggs were delivered daily to tenants), six goats, and a (small) bear. The city’s Department of Health stepped in to close his so-called “farm in the sky” in 1907.

Stokes was also drawn to New York’s criminal elements. After the hotel officially opened in April 1904, he encouraged notorious racketeer Al Adams to move straight from his prison cell into the Ansonia.

Two years later Adams was found shot dead in his suite. The coroner initially claimed that Adams was murdered by Stokes over an unpaid debt but later changed his verdict to suicide.

Sex club

Stokes survived being shot three times in the legs by his 22-year-old vaudeville showgirl mistress, Lillian Graham, in an argument over risqué love letters that she’s found.

After Stokes died an old man, his son sold the hotel to a corrupt landlord who fell into bankruptcy. The deteriorating Ansonia was bought at auction by local sign maker Jacob Starr for a mere $50,000. He allowed the Ansonia to further decline, later actually recommending it be demolished.

In the ’60s, Starr leased Ansonia’s swimming pool and Turkish baths to an entrepreneur who turned them into a cabaret/sex club called the Continental Baths, complete with a waterfall and orgy room. Guests could watch sex acts while listening to performances by the likes of Barry Manilow andBette Midler.

In 1977, the baths closed and Plato’s Retreat, one of the world’s most infamous sex clubs opened, boasting a 50 person Jacuzzi, and “clothing optional” disco dancing.

THE BELNORD

The Belnord, the other inspiration for “Only Murders…” and the building you see in the series, opened five years after the Asconia in 1909. According to this article in the New York Times, its architect boasted that it was the largest apartment building in the country, and maybe the world.

“Newspapers, including The NY Times, claimed the interior courtyard was the biggest in Manhattan — a half acre of open space, with a garden and a lawn and a “bountiful, tiered marble fountain.”The 175 rented apartments, more than 15 metres deep from street to courtyard had the latest modern conveniences. Each apartment had a dedicated private laundry with a tub, ironing board and clothesline.

With a population of more than 1,500 notable tenants included Lee Strasberg, the father of “Method” acting, who was often visited by his student, Marilyn Monroe; Walter Matthau, actor Zero Mostel, who played Tevye in the original Broadway production of “Fiddler on the Roof”; and Nobel Prize-winning author Isaac Bashevis Singer, who would jog around the courtyard in a three-piece suit.

By the 1970s the ornate limestone-and-terra-cotta structure was crumbling, the roof was leaking and the plumbing cracked. Ceilings were collapsing. Stalactites, The New York Times reported in 1980, had formed in the basement.

The building’s owner, Lillian Seril, would earn the dubious distinction of being one of the city’s worst landlords: When tenants bought their own fridges to replace broked appliances, they had to sneak them in because Mrs Seril would not allow them to be to be repaired or replaced.Rent strike

Rent Strike

In 1978, despite paying just a few hundred dollars a month for their enormous, house-like apartments, the Belnord’s residents began what would be the longest rent strike in the city’s history, lasting 16 years. A city official likened the situation to the siege of Beirut.

In 1994, developer Gary Barnett, only 38, bought the building with a group of investors for $15 million. He would spend US$100 million restoring it. As part of the deal, Mrs Seril kept a 1000-square-metre rent-controlled apartment for herself — at her death, in 2004, she was paying just $450 a month.

Barnett made various sweetheart deals with individual tenants as he attempted to restore the Belnord as a luxury rental building, with rents rising to US$45,000 a month.

He bought a house in the New Jersey suburbs for a rabbi and his family who were paying $275 for a massive apartment. He bought a house in Las Vegas for a penthouse dweller who longed for the desert.

Other tenants opted to keep their low rents, but agreed to swap their vast, 11-room apartments for smaller ones.

By 2015, Barnett sold out in a deal worth a reported US$575 million, after he stopped making the loan payments, and a new group of investors stepped in to turn the place into a high-end condominium, converting the 100 or so available apartments into showplaces with Italian marble kitchens.

Prices for the revamped units ranged from about US$3.6 million to more than US$11 million, although some tenants bought their own apartments at deep discounts..

And now the Belnord is once again in the limelight thanks to the series currently streaming on Disney Plus.

And although the fabulous apartments of Martin, Short and Gomez’s characters were built on a sound stage, most would agree the stories deserve buildings like the Belnord and the Asconia to evoke the grandeur, drama and history that underpins

This article was culled from beautifully illustrated features in Vanity Fair and The New York Times. Take advantage of their free access or trial subscriptions to read the full stories in all their glory.