(Not Only) Murders and Their Buildings:
The True Crime Podcast Phenomenon
Wednesday, March 12 6-7pm via Zoom Free for LW! Members
Please Note: This program will NOT be recorded
For several seasons, the fictional Arconia building (actually the grand historic Belnord, a well-known apartment building on the Upper West Side of Manhattan) has been the setting for Only Murders in the Building, the successful and satiric tv series which features a trio of plucky true crime fanatics who use their podcast to solve murders.
Ever wonder if Only Murders is anything like a real “true crime” podcast?
The always fantastic Dr. Paula Uruburu, Professor Emerita of literature and film at Hofstra University, has several theories to share with LW! fans. The author of American Eve, involving the “Crime of the Century” murder of Gilded Age starchitect Stanford White, Dr. Uruburu has been a featured guest on a number of true crime podcasts.
She knows all about connections between historic places and their scandals, and she’s ready to offer her own forensic analysis of Only Murders in the Building and its place in the cultural phenomenon of the true crime podcast.
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!
Our speaker:
Dr. Paula Uruburu received her Ph.D. from SUNY Stony Brook in Literature and is an Emeritus Professor of English and Film Studies at Hofstra where she was English Department Chair and Vice Dean of the School for University Studies. Her book, American Eve, is a non-fiction account of Evelyn Nesbit and her role in the 1906 "trial of the century" for the murder of famed architect Stanford White at Madison Square Garden. She is currently finishing a book on the infamous Lizzie Borden. Dr. Uruburu has appeared as an expert or acted as a consultant for A&E, PBS, the History Channel, the Smithsonian Channel, HLN, CNN, EPIX< AHC Channel and others. Of Basque-Irish descent, she is a native New Yorker who has always liked the fact that her last name is a palindrome.
