(Not Only) Murders and Their Buildings: The True Crime Podcast Phenomenon
Weds., March 12 6-7pm via Zoom Free for LW! Members
Ever wonder if Only Murders in the Building is anything like a real “true crime” podcast? Dr. Paula Uruburu offers her own forensic analysis of the show’s place in the cultural phenomenon of the true crime podcast. For several seasons, the fictional Arconia building (actually the grand historic Belnord, a landmarked apartment building on the Upper West Side) has been the setting for the successful and satiric tv series which features a trio of plucky true crime fanatics who use their podcast to solve murders.
We’ll investigate how a location—an UWS apartment complex, for example—can provide all the elements for a tangled tale of intrigue. The plot thickens with a line-up of the (un)usual suspects. Meanwhile, true-crime aficionados will enjoy i.d.’ing the show’s many details that come straight out of real podcasts.
It’s true crime meets the whodunit on the historic Upper West Side!
TICKETS
2025 Mayoral Candidates Forum with Preservation Organizations
When: Monday, March 24th, 6 PM
Where: Online, via Zoom
Landmark West! and fellow preservation organizations from across NYC are hosting a forum via Zoom with Mayoral candidates on Monday, March 24 at 6 pm. This is the ONLY Mayoral candidate forum focused on preservation and development issues, and we strongly urge you to attend — to learn more about the candidates, and to let them know that New Yorkers care about preserving our city and our neighborhoods.
This is one of the most important Mayoral elections in memory. Our city is at a turning point, and powerful forces are pushing unprecedented measures to deregulate development in our city and roll back longstanding landmark and zoning protections. The next occupant of City Hall will shape our city and our neighborhoods for generations.
All candidates have been invited.
Stubborn Survivors: The Holdouts of West End Avenue
Wednesday, March 26, 6-7pm via Zoom Special Guest Speaker: Tom Miller
West End Avenue was an elegant residential thoroughfare in the 19th century, lined with brick and brownstone mansions. In the early 20th century, however, fashion switched from private homes to upscale apartment living. The rows of private residences were replaced by soaring modern multi-family buildings. But certain homeowners stubbornly resisted the trend. As a result, West End Avenue has numerous eccentric leftovers—once refined rowhouses now vised between soaring apartment buildings.
Don’t miss this special program by history fan favorite Tom Miller (aka the “Daytonian in Manhattan” blogger) for an online tour of West End Avenue’s stubborn, beloved, and literally low-profile holdouts. As always, Miller will share from his trove of deeply researched historic photos and much more to tell the stories that played out within these buildings and what’s going on with them today.
Holding the Safety Net in San Juan Hill VIDEO
Wednesday, January 25th 6-7pm via Zoom
Please join Landmark West! and architectural historian Jessica Larson in this exploration of the ways in which Black charity and reform initiatives shaped the landscape of San Juan Hill, the community Robert Moses demolished to make way for the Lincoln Center for the Perforning Arts complex, in the early decades of the 20th century. Larson will focus in on the architecture of the buildings constructed to facilitate this social work, and together we will look at how the built environment of San Juan Hill was shaped by community-driven efforts to address poverty and improve the quality of life for the residents. Because charity work was deeply gendered, Larson will emphasize the significance of women to the spatial and welfare programs of the neighborhood.
Speaker Jessica Larson is a Ph.D. candidate in Art and Architectural History at the CUNY Graduate Center. Her dissertation examines the architecture of charitable and reform institutions built in Manhattan for Black aid recipients between the Civil War and World War I, with a focus on how women reformers directed to these designs. She has held fellowships with the American Council of Learned Societies, the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and the Library of Congress. She has also worked for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Princeton University Art Museum, and the Bruce Museum. Jessica is currently a Fellow at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Museum of American History.
.
Looking for VIDEOS of past LW programs? LW! Members have free access HERE with passcode!
Need the passcode? Email us at Landmarkwest@Landmarkwest.org – all recordings are available for free viewing for members
