NYC Free: Where TV Shows Were Filmed

If you are a TV or Streaming Video fan, you know The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel was a big winner at the Emmy Awards, and not because it’s about characters who live and work in NYC.

New York plays a starring role in many TV shows, past and present, including such favs as Happy Days, Sex and the City, Friends, Law and Order, NYPD Blue, Blue Bloods and Bull.

And the newsroom comedy Murphy Brown, returning to TV this season after a long hiatus.

Plus other TV shows including The Good Wife, Madam Secretary and The Americans, filmed here in New York City, although they are set in other cities.

Since the 1960s, New York City addresses have played a prominent role in TV sitcoms, romcoms and dramas.

You could pay a sightseeing tour group big bucks to drive you past famous TV show sites.  Or, you could use your Metrocard and visit for FREE.  Okay, almost free.

With the start of the new TV season upon us, here’s a nostalgic look back to where the stars of several favorite and classic TV series of the 1970s, 80s and 90s supposedly lived, in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens.

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Find the complete list of what TV shows and movies are being filmed in New York City right now is on this official NYC government website page.

Friends

Hang out with the ever popular quartet and their angst and romantic entanglements at 90 Bedford Street, corner Grove St., in the Village.  The show aired for ten seasons, from 1994 to 2004, and made stars out of Jennifer Anniston, Courtney Cox, Matthew Perry, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc and David Schwimmer.

• IRT #1 train to Christopher Street station

The Odd Couple

The lovable characters portrayed by Jack Klugman as the slob and Tony Randall as the prissy perfect and stressed-out roommate lived (fictionally, of course) at 1049 Park Ave., at 86th St., on the Upper East Side. The series, which ran for five seasons,  was based on the Broadway play, which was turned into a Hollywood film, in which Jack Lemmon played the lovable slob.

The Odd Couple was written by the brilliant and beloved playright Neil Simon, who passed away in August 2018 at the age of 91. Here is his obituary in Variety.

• IRT 4, 5 or 6 to 86th St. station

The Cosby Show

The Huxtable family supposedly lived in Brooklyn, but the front door of the brownstone filmed as their home is really at 10 St. Luke’s Place, between Hudson St. and Seventh Ave., in the Village.  The series made stars of mom Phylicia Rashad, and now-grown Huxtable children Raven-Symone and Keisha Knight Pulliam.

• IRT #1 train to Houston St. in the Village

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NYCOTC page of the Best of Brooklyn

All in the Family

Lovable bigot Archie Bunker and his equally lovable scatterbrained wife Edith, played by Carroll O’Connor and Edith Stapleton, lived with their daughter and the son-in-law he called “Meat Head” at 87-90 Cooper Ave., between Metropolitan Ave. and Woodhaven Blvd, in Glendale. The series, created by Norman Lear, was one of the most popular TV shows of its time.  Rob Reiner, who portrayed Meat Head, has become a well-known actor and film director in the years since he was the brunt of Archie’s barbs.

• Take the M train to Middle Village-Metropolitan Ave., then the Q 54 Bus east to Cooper Ave.
• Take the R or V train to Woodhaven Blvd and then the Q33 bus to Cooper Ave.

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Diff’Rent Strokes

The series about two black kids from Harlem welcomed into the family of a wealthy New York when their mother, his housekeeper, passes away, lived at 900 Park Ave. at 79th St.  The series starred the late Gary Coleman as the precocious trouble-maker younger brother.

• IRT #6 train to 77th St.

The Jeffersons

The upwardly mobile African-American family lived at 185 East 85th St. at Third Ave., on the Upper East Side.  The series, also created by Norman Lear, was an offshoot of All in the Family, and in one of the great ironies of TV programming, the offshoot lasted for eleven seasons, longer than the “parent” sitcom.

• IRT 4, 5 or 6 to 86th St.

See The Marveous Mrs. Maisel FREE on Amazon Prime.  If you are not already a member, click here to get a FREE TRIAL of Amazon Prime, and spend the next 30 days binge-watching.

What’s your favorite TV series filmed in New York City?

Images courtesy Wikipedia, IMDB and Amazon.