TRUE CRIME: The real crimes in the building!

On televisions Just murders in the building, a trio of crime-solving podcasters set out to solve mysterious murders in their Manhattan apartment building, Arconia.

But while the crimes are as fictional as the characters played by Disney Plus, the show’s stars—Martin Short, Steve Martin, and Selena Gomez—the New York luxury building the show is said to be loosely based on actually exists. And it has a dark and unusual history.

Over the years, the real-life Ansonia, a sprawling Upper West Side building that takes up an entire block on Broadway, has hosted an eclectic array of stars from Angelina Jolie to Macauley Culkin.
of Tony Curtis and the famous baseball player Babe Ruth, among others. It also had some less tasty residents.

CRIMINAL HANG OUT

Built by colorful real estate developer William Earl Dodge Stokes – reportedly the inspiration for Just murders in the buildingHis fictional “infamous playboy architect”—who set out to build “the grandest hotel in Manhattan” in 1904—did just that when the Ansonia opened.

Complete with the world’s largest indoor swimming pool and a fountain housing live seals, it also had a ballroom, bank, barber shop and Turkish baths. It’s a rooftop ‘sky farm’ home to ducks, 500 chickens, six goats and even a baby bear.

But despite its glamorous ambitions, the hotel, which originally had 2,500 rooms and now has around 400 suites, was for a time a criminal hangout. Racketeer Al Adams traded his Sing Sing cell for the new building, but then in 1906 he was found dead there from a gunshot wound.

While the medical examiner ultimately ruled it a suicide, there were rumors that it was KILLED of Stokes for an unpaid debt.

CREATED SCANDALS

In 1912, a teenager died after falling from the 16th floor in an elevator, just like one of the victims of season three of Only crimes. Stokes then got away with 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 occurred within the walls of the Beaux-Arts building, including the famous 1919 hosting of baseball’s World Series, in which members of the Chicago White Sox, including leader Chick Gandil, met with the players in one of the Ansonia rooms where they conspired 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 renting out housing instead.

Its glamorous restaurants closed and various owners went bankrupt. In the 1960s, the basement pool became home to a cabaret venue and sex club, while in the 1970s psychics and spirits held services in the chapel and reported ghostly views.

The gruesome deaths also continued. Eric Tcherkezian, a 27-year-old voice teacher, was murdered in his apartment in May 1970, but it wasn’t until a decade later that serial killer Bruce Alan Davis was named as his killer after he confessed to killing an unnamed person in Ansonia in the 70s.

DRAMATIC PAST

After decades of landlord-tenant squabbling, poor maintenance and rent strikes, the building began to crumble.

In 1990, 1800 kg of plaster and concrete that had once been part of the ornate ceiling fell, killing one woman and seriously injuring two others on the ground floor. However, by 2000, the now largely renovated building became desirable again, and apartments began to sell for millions.

But while Ansonia’s dramatic past may have inspired some of the Just murders in the building plotline, 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 appear frequently in the series.

Belnord hasn’t had that many mysterious deaths over the years, but it does have a network of service passages that many residents have never entered, like the ones on the show.

When Just murders in the building creator John Hoffman got approval to film there, he was delighted. “The building itself is a character,” he said. It’s also expensive—Martha Stewart recently bought a six-bedroom apartment there for $18 million.

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