The real apartment where Seinfeld creator Larry David met Kramer has also been home to Alicia Keys, Terrence Howard, Angela Lansbury and more: Here's Why

Inside NYC's Most Star-Studded Apartment Building, Where Samuel L. Jackson Was Once the Doorman

Seinfeld superfans may know that creator Larry David really did have a kooky neighbor named Kramer in his New York City apartment building. But unlike the classic sitcom, the real Manhattan high-rise on which it’s based had an even more impressive cast of characters, including Angela Lansbury, Terrence Howard, Alicia Keys, Donald Faison and Samuel L. Jackson.

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Manhattan Plaza, a subsidized apartment complex on 42nd street not far from Times Square, offered affordable housing to artists, actors and creatives in the late 1970s in an effort to draw more desirable residents to the shady neighborhood, known for its adult film theaters and dangerous streets.

In the new documentary Miracle on 42nd Street, premiering at the Santa Barbara Film Festival in late January, some of the A-list former residents — and its former doorman, Samuel L. Jackson — open up about what it was like to live in the unremarkable tower filled with remarkable tenants, from the time it opened in 1977 to the present.