BY LILAH RAMZI, Vogue Magazine, August 27, 2024
“You know what I love about these guys?” Selena Gomez once joked about filming alongside her Only Murders in the Building co-stars Martin Short and Steve Martin. “No paparazzi—ever!” It wasn’t just a punch line, however—for a show filmed on location on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, there are indeed surprisingly few paparazzi shots. The show, which centers on the murders, murderesses, and murderers, unfolding in a historic UWS apartment complex, is heavily rooted in its location. If there are three stars of the show, let’s consider the Upper West Side the fourth. (Though, that’s not to say there hasn’t been a constellation of stars who have made cameos throughout OMITB’s three seasons.)
To ensure that the neighborhood gets its due, Vogue has compiled a guide to the Upper West Side—a slice of Manhattan sandwiched between Central Park West and Riverside Drive that wonderfully holds up to its cliché as a neighborhood for bookish thinkers who prefer their avenues lined with bagel shops over fashion flagships.
Vogue’s Guide to the Upper West Side
The Belnord
On screen, the “building” in OMITB is referred to as the Arconia; in reality, it’s The Belnord, a sprawling and historic apartment complex occupying a full block on Broadway, Amsterdam Avenue, and 86th and 87th Streets. Built between 1908 and 1909, The Belnord is part of a group of Upper West Side luxury apartment complexes that sprung up in the late 19th century and lured the wealthy into apartments versus stand-alone mansions. The trend began with the Dakota (more on that below), but the Belnord could claim it occupied an entire city block, and at the time of construction, its interior courtyard was one of the largest in the world. Over the decades, luminaries like Lee Strasberg, Sophie Braslau, and Lillian Genth (an artsy lot, not unlike the fictional characters on the show) called The Belnord home, and clearly, the building remains a desirable address: earlier this year, Martha Stewart even moved in.
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
The Upper West Side contains one of Manhattan’s greatest treasures, Lincoln Center—a complex housing The New York Philharmonic, The Metropolitan Opera, the New York City Ballet, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Juilliard School, and more, built by architects like Philip Johnson, Eero Saarinen, Wallace K. Harrison, Max Abramovitz, and more. In season one of OMITH, Charles-Hayden Savage (Steve Martin) takes up with a bassoonist (played by Amy Ryan) and attends one of her concerts at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall.
