In TV’s Only Murders In The Building, a trio of crime-solving podcasters set out to solve mysterious killings in their Manhattan apartment block, the Arconia.
But while the murders are as fictional as the characters played by the Disney Plus show’s stars – Martin Short, Steve Martin and Selena Gomez – the high-end New York building the show is said to be loosely based on, really does exists. And it has a dark and unusual history.
Over the years the real life Ansonia, a vast Upper West Side building that occupies a full city block on Broadway, has been home to an eclectic range of stars from Angelina Jolie and Macauley Culkin
to Tony Curtis and famous baseballer Babe Ruth, among others. It also had some less savoury inhabitants.
CRIMINAL HANG OUT
Built by colourful real estate developer William Earl Dodge Stokes – reportedly the inspiration for Only Murders In The Building’s fictional “infamous playboy architect” – who set out to build the “grandest hotel in Manhattan”, in 1904 he did just that when the Ansonia opened.
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Complete with the world’s largest indoor pool and a fountain housing live seals, it also had a ballroom, bank, barbershop and Turkish baths. It’s “farm in the sky” on the rooftop housed ducks, 500 chickens, six goats and even a small bear.
But despite its glamorous ambitions, the hotel, which originally had 2500 rooms and now has around 400 apartments, was for a time a criminal kingpin hangout. Racketeer Al Adams swapped his Sing Sing cell for the new building but then, in 1906, was found dead there by gunshot wound.
While the coroner eventually decided it was suicide, there were rumours he was murdered by Stokes for an unpaid debt.
SCANDALS BREWED
In 1912 a teenage boy died after falling down an elevator shaft from the 16th floor – much like one of the victims in season three of Only Murders. Then Stokes narrowly escaped his own murder after being shot three times in the legs by his 22-year-old mistress, Lillian Graham in 1911. The vaudeville showgirl was reportedly blackmailing Stokes, who survived.
Other scandals brewed within the walls of the Beaux-Arts building, including the famous 1919 fixing of the baseball World Series, which saw members of the Chicago White Sox, including ringleader Chick Gandil, meet with gamblers in one of Ansonia’s rooms where they plotted to throw the game.
After Stokes died in 1926, the building was sold by his son and began to fall into disrepair, closing as a hotel during the Great Depression and housing rentals instead.
Its glamorous restaurants also shut and various owners went bankrupt. By the ’60s, the basement swimming pool became home to a cabaret venue and sex club, while in the ’70s, psychics and spiritualists held services in the chapel and reported ghostly sightings.
The grisly deaths also continued. Eric Tcherkezian, a 27-year-old voice teacher was killed in his apartment in May 1970, but it wasn’t until a decade later that serial killer Bruce Alan Davis was assumed to be his killer after he confessed to murdering an unnamed person in the Ansonia in the’70s.
DRAMATIC PAST
After decades of landlord-tenant squabbles, poor maintenance work and rent strikes, the building began to crumble.
In 1990, 1800kg of plaster and concrete that was once part of the ornate ceiling fell and killed a woman and badly injured two others on the ground floor. By 2000 however, the now largely renovated building became desirable again and apartments began selling for millions.
But while the Ansonia’s dramatic past might have inspired some of the Only Murders In The Building plotlines, the exterior in the show is actually another Upper West Side building a few blocks north, the Belnord. Built in 1908, its facade, gated entrance and half acre of courtyard frequently features in the series.
The Belnord hasn’t had quite so many mysterious deaths over the years, but it does have a network of service passages many residents have never entered, like the ones on the show.
When Only Murders In The Building creator John Hoffman got approval to shoot there, he was elated. “The building itself is a character,” he said. It’s expensive too – Martha Stewart recently bought a six-bedroom apartment there for $18 million.
