Growing up in the "Murders" building
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Martin Short and Selena Gomez in "Only Murders in the Building." Photo: Courtesy of Eric McCandless/Disney
Asher here, glued to another episode in the "Only Murders in the Building" series.
Driving the news: New episodes of the comic whodunit — starring Steve Martin, Selena Gomez and Martin Short — drop through the end of October.
Behind the scenes: My interest in the show is keener than most because … I grew up in that building — and my parents still live there.
In the show, the building is called the Arconia. In real life, it's the Belnord, on Manhattan's Upper West Side, just a few blocks from Central Park.
- There were never the sorts of secret corridors key to some episodes, but as a little kid, I used to play with Alex and Ivan, the sons of Zoran, the building super, in some little-known subterranean passageways.
- As for the murders, all I can tell you is that as a 10-year-old running to catch a morning school bus, I almost tripped over a dead body, covered in a white sheet, in one of the building's iconic archways — a doorman shouted for my attention just in time.
The back story: It's always been a very old-school building — when I was growing up, the tenants were engaged in a drag-out rent strike against the owners, because in New York that's apparently something you can do.
- As a little boy, I spotted the famed Yiddish writer Isaac Bashevis Singer strolling the courtyard — and the great musical actor Zero Mostel had also once called the building home.
- Matt Damon and his family once kept an apartment in the building — which, of course, was thrilling.
True story: Bits of two episodes of "Law & Order" were filmed in my parents' apartment — the studio once put us up in a midtown hotel for a week — and Jerry Orbach and my mother shared notes about doing the New York Times crossword puzzle.
- To her delight — and his, too — he signed our original cast album of "The Fantasticks," in which, as a very young man, he starred as El Gallo.
Reality check: A lot of the show is filmed on sound stages, but some of it is still filmed in the building. My mother was telling me about getting to witness a scene involving Meryl Streep and Martin Short in the building courtyard.
The bottom line: Now when I visit there's occasionally a tourist out front taking selfies.
- It's weird seeing your parents' home on television, especially as a backdrop for a series of murders.