With so many television shows set in New York, we thought it would be fun to take a look at the apartments the characters on these shows lived in. First up: Lucy and Ricky Ricardo.
I Love Lucy was set in New York City, but filmed in Los Angeles — even though, at the time, most television shows were broadcast live from here (with low-quality 35mm or 16mm kinescope prints made to broadcast it in other time zones). It was Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz that insisted filming on the West Coast, and they took a pay cut in order to make it happen. The money instead went towards filming the shows in higher quality for the other time zones. In their Hollywood version of New York, the Ricardo's address on the show was 623 East 68th Street (Apt 4A, and later Apt 3D, when Little Ricky arrived). TV Acres points out that on a real street map, their apartment would have been in the East River... so you can't even visit a brownstone their building was based on here.
Other fun NYC facts:
- Ricky was an orchestra leader at the (fictional) Manhattan Tropicana Club.
- The Ricardos paid $125 a month in rent (to landlord Fred Mertz).
- They signed a 99 year lease! But when they moved to Connecticut, Mertz tore up their lease saving them 97 years in payments (around $150,000).
- The back door you see in the apartments on the show are a common trait of older buildings in Los Angeles, but not of those in New York.
- The couple had three phone numbers over the course of the show, the first was Murray-hill 5-9975, the second was CIrcle-7-2099, and the third was Murray-hill 5-9099 — all unused numbers of the New York Bell Telephone Company.
- In real life, Bill Frawley (aka Fred Mertz) was such big fan of the New York Yankees, that he stipulated in his contract that if the Yankees reached the World Series he would be given time off to attend. This happened seven times during the series (which ran nine years), and caused major production headaches.
- And finally, here are some DIY ways to make your apartment look like the Ricardos.
