Only Murders in the Building (2021–) is an American mystery comedy-drama series created by Steve Martin and John Hoffman. The series follows three neighbours in a grand Upper West Side apartment building: Charles-Haden Savage, a semi-retired television actor; Oliver Putnam, a theatrical and financially troubled Broadway director; and Mabel Mora, a younger artist with a complicated connection to the building’s past. Played by Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez, the trio bond over their shared obsession with true-crime podcasts and begin recording their own when a suspicious death occurs inside their building. The series combines murder mystery, character comedy, theatre satire and New York eccentricity, turning each season into both a whodunit and a portrait of lonely people finding friendship through investigation.
Only Murders in the Building is closely tied to New York City, especially the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The fictional Arconia, where much of the story takes place, is represented by The Belnord at 225 West 86th Street, a large pre-war apartment building that occupies an entire city block between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue. Its arched entrances, inner courtyard and old New York scale give the series its central visual identity, making the building feel like a self-contained world of secrets, grudges, neighbours, history and hidden rooms. The Arconia interiors are a mixture of real New York inspiration, studio sets and other interior locations rather than simply the inside of The Belnord, allowing the series to create highly individual apartments for Charles, Oliver and Mabel. Other New York locations used across the series include the Upper West Side streets around the building, Central Park, the Dakota, Court Square in Long Island City, Coney Island and the Pickle Diner. Season three expands the series into the theatre world, with the United Palace Theatre in Washington Heights used as the Goosebury Theater for Oliver’s Broadway production. Later seasons broaden the geography further, including a Los Angeles storyline connected to the film version of the trio’s podcast, but the series’ strongest location identity remains the Arconia and its surrounding New York neighbourhood. The building is not just a setting; it is the structure that makes the series work, turning stairwells, elevators, courtyards, apartments, lobbies and neighbourly encounters into part of the mystery itself.
Windjammer Bar
Windjammer Bar appears in Only Murders in the Building, where it is used as Concussions, a fictional bar connected to the stunt performer community.
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