The Belnord
2360 Broadway | also 201 West 86th Street, 205 West 86th Street, 203 West 86th Street | Upper West Side | built 2015
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Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1909
The Belnord opens as what its architect calls the country's largest apartment building
Architect H. Hobart Weekes of Hiss and Weekes designed this Italian Renaissance Revival building for the Belnord Realty Company, and it opened on October 1, 1909. It fills the block between Broadway, Amsterdam Avenue, and 86th and 87th Streets around a courtyard 231 feet long. Weekes boasted to the New York Times that it was the largest apartment building in the country and perhaps the world, with 175 apartments of up to 14 rooms.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1920
Theater owners and lyricists make the Belnord a show-business address
In the early 1920s the Belnord counted theater people among its tenants, including Walter Reade, who ran a growing chain of movie theaters, and Joseph Leblang, part owner of several theaters. Lyricist Henry Martyn Blossom, who worked mostly with Victor Herbert, had been an early resident. Later tenants included Nobel Prize-winning author Isaac Bashevis Singer, Lee Strasberg, Zero Mostel and Walter Matthau.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1922
Tenant Lillian Duke charges her broker with grand larceny
Lillian N. Duke, a Belnord tenant who had received a $500,000 settlement after her 1904 marriage to tobacco magnate James Buchanan Duke ended in divorce, accused the broker Alfred E. Lindsay of grand larceny; the Morning Telegraph reported the charge on March 2, 1922. Lindsay went to prison for taking $325,000 in cash and $50,000 in jewelry from her, but the victory left her nearly broke. She moved to West 88th Street and died there in 1925.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1923
The Belnord sells in what is said to be the largest recorded sale of a single residential building
On February 8, 1923, the thirteen-story Belnord, which fills the full block between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue from 86th to 87th Street, changed hands in what The New York Times said was the largest recorded sale of a single apartment building. The sellers held the property at a valuation of $6,000,000. The Times headline said an investors' syndicate was the buyer.
Source: Internet Archive
- 1955
Actress Ona Munson, Belle Watling in Gone with the Wind, dies in her Belnord apartment
Ona Munson, an actress best remembered as the madam Belle Watling in Gone with the Wind, died by suicide at age 51 in her apartment in the Belnord. Her husband, Berman, found her on the afternoon of February 11, 1955. She had been in poor health after a surgical procedure. She is buried at Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1966
The city designates the Belnord's exterior a landmark
The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the Belnord a city landmark on September 20, 1966, making it one of the first on the Upper West Side. The designation covered the outer facade but not the inner facade along the courtyard. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1978
Nearly half the Belnord's tenants begin a rent strike
In 1978 close to half of the Belnord's residents began withholding rent from owners Nathan and Lillian Seril, who had become the building's sole owners in 1974. Tenants cited broken elevators, burst pipes, a leaking roof and falling plaster, and said they were not allowed to make repairs themselves. The Serils' son-in-law later argued that rent-controlled apartments averaging about $60 a room left too little money to keep up the building. The strike became one of the longest in the city.
Source: Internet Archive
- 1980
A housing court judge quits the Belnord dispute, saying the two sides deserved each other
In 1980 the Manhattan Housing Court judge handling the fight between the Belnord's tenants and landlord Lillian Seril withdrew after a settlement he had arranged collapsed, remarking that the two sides deserved each other. Litigation carried on through the decade, outlasting Nathan Seril, who died in 1981. Along the way a court-appointed administrator was installed to run the building, a measure the Times noted is normally aimed at slumlords.
Source: Internet Archive
- 1984
A judge orders the Belnord rent strike ended and hands the strikers' $1.2 million to the landlord
In January 1984 State Supreme Court Justice Martin Evans ordered the Belnord rent strike ended and the strikers' remaining $1.2 million handed to landlord Lillian Seril for repairs and maintenance. Half of the building's roughly 200 tenants had been striking for five years, complaining of dangerous elevators, absent doormen and a roof that had leaked for a decade. Tenant leaders vowed to keep fighting, Seril was suing strike leaders for $9.5 million, and the writer Isaac Bashevis Singer kept an apartment in the building.
Source: Internet Archive
- 1994
A settlement ends one of the city's longest rent strikes as the Belnord changes hands
By 1980 the Belnord's roof, elevators and electrical and plumbing systems needed major repairs, and tenants had been fighting the owner, Lillian Seril, for years. In October 1994 she sold the building to Property Markets Group, and a settlement ended a rent strike that the New York Times called one of the longest in city history. The new owners agreed to spend $5 million on plumbing, electrical and security systems and more staff.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1996
Former owner Lillian Seril, now a tenant, attacks the new owners' renovation plans
Lillian Seril sold the Belnord to investors in 1994 but kept living there, in a 3,000-square-foot rent-controlled apartment that cost $450 a month. In 1996 she delivered a long address to the Landmarks Preservation Commission attacking the new owners' renovation plans and their wish to open a large supermarket in the basement. This time she spoke as a tenant. She died in 2004 at the age of 95, still a resident.
Source: Internet Archive
- 2015
HFZ Capital buys the Belnord for $575 million and plans condominiums
HFZ Capital Group took over the Belnord's residential portion in March 2015 after paying $575 million, about $2.64 million per apartment. It hired architect Robert A. M. Stern in April 2017 to renovate the units as condominiums, and sales were allowed to begin that August. Exterior shots of the building stand in for the fictional Arconia in the series Only Murders in the Building.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2020
Only Murders in the Building films its first season, with the Belnord as the Arconia's exterior
Principal photography for the first season of the mystery-comedy series Only Murders in the Building began in New York on December 3, 2020, and ended in April 2021. The Belnord supplied exterior shots of the Arconia, the fictional upscale apartment building where Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez play neighbors who investigate murders. Interiors were filmed on a soundstage, and the second season began filming on December 1, 2021.
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
- The BelnordWikipedia
- The 1909 Belnord Apartments - 225 West 86th StreetDaytonian in Manhattan
Nearby
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- Congregation B'nai Jeshurun257 West 88th Street | 11 entries
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