gothamist
ABC Turns The Ansonia Into 666 Park Avenue
By Jen Chung
May 16, 2012Â Â
Yesterday, ABC announced that it would add a Revenge-like drama to its fall lineup–the New York City-set 666 Park Avenue. Of course, it’s about real estate and the devil. Here’s the show description:
At the ominous address of 666 Park Avenue, anything you desire can be yours. Everyone has needs, desires and ambition. For the residents of The Drake, these will all be met, courtesy of the building’s mysterious owner, Gavin Doran (Terry O’Quinn). But every Faustian contract comes with a price. When Jane Van Veen (Rachael Taylor) and Henry Martin (Dave Annable), an idealistic young couple from the Midwest, are offered the opportunity to manage the historic building, they not only fall prey to the machinations of Doran and his mysterious wife, Olivia (Vanessa Williams), but unwittingly begin to experience the shadowy, supernatural forces within the building that imprison and endanger the lives of the residents inside.
Sexy, seductive and inviting, The Drake maintains a dark hold over all of its residents, tempting them through their ambitions and desires, in this chilling new drama that’s home to an epic struggle of good versus evil.
Duh, of course Doran is evil–it’s John Locke from Lost!
The building that is standing in for 666 (really 999) Park Avenue is the Upper West Side‘s Ansonia building at 2109 Broadway between West 73rd and West 74th Street. The gorgeous Beaux-Arts-style structure has been notable in previous movies like Single White Female and Hannah and Her Sisters. But its reality is perhaps more interesting: A few years ago, a couple sued a neighbor over her smoking and, in the 1970s, it was the home of the Continental Baths bathhouse, where Bette Midler got her start with Barry Manilow as her accompanist (the Continental Baths then became legendary swingers’ club Plato’s Retreat).
Guess New Yorkers will see more filming in the future–besides the Upper West Side, the show has filmed at Lincoln Center and on the High Line.
