The Arconia (Only Murders in the Building) – Film Hunt NYC

In Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building, three true-crime obsessives — a washed-up TV actor, a broke Broadway director, and a mysterious young artist — turn their Upper West Side apartment building into a murder scene and a hit podcast studio. That building, the Arconia, isn’t a set. Its grand pre-war exterior is the Belnord, the 1908 landmark that swallows a full city block at 225 West 86th Street.

Trivia

• Co-creator John Hoffman told The New York Times he was “obsessed” with the Belnord long before the show existed — the building was cast before the cast was.
• The show credits the Arconia’s design to “Archibald Carter, architect and infamous playboy.” He doesn’t exist. The real architect was H. Hobart Weekes of the firm Hiss & Weekes.
• Only the exteriors and courtyard are the real Belnord. Charles, Oliver, and Mabel’s apartments were built on sets at Silvercup Studios North in the Bronx, and the grand lobby scenes were shot at 270 Riverside Drive.
• The courtyard with the fountain — home of the season-one superfan stakeout — is the Belnord’s actual interior courtyard, one of the largest residential courtyards in New York.
• A 1911 newspaper ad billed the Belnord as “the largest apartment building in the world.” It was designated a New York City landmark in 1966.

The Hunt Clue

“A podcast trio hunts for clues, in a white-glove tower with an Upper West view. It eats a whole city block, grand and old — stand where the Arconia’s secrets unfold!”

Getting There

Address: 225 West 86th Street, New York, NY 10024 — on the Upper West Side, between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue.

The easiest route is the subway: take the 1 train to 86th St, then walk one block west along 86th Street toward Amsterdam Avenue — the Belnord’s grand gated entrances are impossible to miss.

Note: the Belnord is a private residential building. Admire the exterior and courtyard gates from the sidewalk — don’t try to tailgate your way in like a true-crime podcaster.