In Relocating, a Bar Will Lose No Claim to Celluloid Fame

Karsten Moran for The New York Times The Emerald Inn, an Irish pub on the Upper West Side, will move to a new location in the neighborhood.

The Emerald Inn, the Upper West Side bar that was the setting for a scene in the movie “The Apartment,” is moving to the site of a bar that figured in another, much darker, movie, “Looking for Mr. Goodbar.”

The Emerald, as regulars call it, had announced its closing last month. Charlie Campbell, whose grandfather opened the bar during World War II, said the landlord had asked for double the current rent of $17,500 a month. Mr. Campbell said he could not afford that.

He said on Wednesday that he had gotten a deal to move to the ground-floor space at 250 West 72nd Street, between Broadway and West End Avenue, that was once occupied by a bar called W.M. Tweeds.

It was there, on New Year’s Day in 1973, that a schoolteacher who was a regular customer walked in for a drink and walked out with another customer. They went to her apartment, where he raped and killed her. The incident served as the basis for a novel by Judith Rossner that was published in 1975 and for a film that was released in 1977. It starred Diane Keaton and Richard Gere.

Tweeds â€" a play on the name of the Tammany Hall boss, William M. Tweed â€" closed after the murder and reopened as the All State Café. But the All State Café closed in 2007, itself a victim of a rent increase. Another bar, P.D. O’Hurley’s, took over the space last fall, promising moderately priced “comfort food and good drinks” and live music on Saturday nights, according to its Facebook page. It closed by mid-February.

Mr. Campbell said he would pay “relatively the same rent but have much more space” in the new location. “My plan is making it a sports bar,” he said. “I’m going to put TVs up in the back room.”

He said it would open on June 1. The Emerald on Columbus Avenue will close by April 30, he said.

The old Emerald was a longtime haunt for ABC News personalities â€" the network’s headquarters are a few blocks away â€" and was the backdrop for the Christmas Eve scene in “The Apartment.” Jack Lemmon, drowning his sorrows at the bar, was oblivious as Hope Holiday shot straw-paper wrappers at him. Finally she took the seat next to him and offered a deal: She would put some music in the jukebox if he would buy her a drink. The song was “O Come All Ye Faithful.” The drink was a rum Collins.

Although the Web site West Side Rag reported on Thursday night that the Emerald was moving, it was about an hour after Mr. Campbell had said his new landlord had yet to receive the $100,000 deposit that would clinch the deal.

Mr. Campbell said on Friday morning that the check still had not been delivered. When he was asked whether the deal was still on, he said, “I believe so, yes.”