The Living Rooms That Set Us up for Disappointment When We Moved to New York

Where Those Iconic Sitcom Apartments Are Located

The single most irresponsible television misrepresentation is that a single woman in her early 30s can afford this size closet in the heart of the West Village on a blogger’s income

The issue with sitcoms is that they’re supposed to resemble a tangible existence that you, the viewer, may relate to and possibly picture yourself in, leading to your becoming invested in both the characters and the show, prompting the series to be renewed.

Now here is when this becomes harmful. Multiple TV shows in my life have given me incredibly unrealistic expectations for what would lie ahead for me. For example, I religiously watched Boy Meets World growing up, thinking I’d experience grade school and beyond like Topanga. Brief pause for what was happening with my general appearance circa 4th grade:

You can rightfully assume that things didn’t play out as hoped. I won’t share high school pictures because I need to maintain some respectable amount of pride, but Laguna Beach ruined me as I went on to layer two Abercrombie polos on top of a lace-lined tank top, neatly stacking the hems at the bottom so all three were visible, popped both collars, and topped the look with an artfully draped skinny scarf. In my mind I was debating whether I’d be the Lo or Lauren but to the outside world, I was wearing enough fabric to constitute as a bullet proof vest.

Moving to New York served me with an equally paralyzing sucker punch. I grew up watching the cast of Friends – all characters in their early to mid-20s, none of which with particularly lucrative jobs – live in apartments with palatal living rooms with separate dining area, full eat-in kitchens, bedrooms with walls that went all the way up to the ceiling, and sun-flooded windows in every room. My first apartment? A one bedroom apartment split into a three bedroom – there was no living room, one bedroom was formerly an actual closet so it had no door or window, and another bedroom had a fake wall with a 12 inch gap from the ceiling, an unassailable mouse infestation, and paper thin walls and ceilings, which allowed front row seats to unrequested 2am concerts by the NYU students in the opera program who lived upstairs.

So today, we’re going to assign addresses to some of New York’s most iconic TV shows apartments and remind you of the audacity these set designers had when irresponsibly creating false expectations for millennials: