How Realistic Are These Five NYC Apartments You’ve Seen on TV?

By Harry Sawyers

There’s always a slight hint of doubt when you see a TV character’s fictional apartment, even if the place is a borderline dump. If it’s on TV, it just doesn’t seem like it could possibly be true.

Padmapper took a look at five New York apartments—the places the characters live in Mad Men, Friends, Seinfeld, Sex and the City, and 30 Rock.

It’s not a big surprise to learn Monica probably couldn’t afford such a huge place working in a restaurant kitchen. Maybe TV writers and set designers have learned to just embrace realistic real estate—the older shows tend to stretch the limits of accuracy more than the programs on the air now.

Seeing the street-level view of some random New York building sort of dulls the allure of these characters’ lives, even if you find out that Don Draper and Liz Lemon really do live where the show says they do. But maybe I’m still smarting from a disappointing, disorienting breakfast at the diner from Seinfeld.

Photo: Padmapper.

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