Former interior designer Iñaki Aliste Lizarralde has a new day job: sketching detailed floor plans of apartments made famous by popular TV shows, from NYC icons like “Sex and the City,” “Friends” and “Seinfeld” to “The Simpsons” and “Golden Girls.”
Lizarralde’s creations, which he sells as prints and posters to television and real estate obsessives, take hours to design and require tons of research. (For more on his process, read The Post’s in-depth interview with him.) The Post decided to investigate: How much would these elaborate sitcom and drama apartments cost in real life? And could their fictional inhabitants ever afford them? We examined 10 to find out.
‘Friends’
Location: West Village
Cost today: $4,500/month (at least!)
Monica Geller allegedly inherited the airy, colorful two-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment she shares with Rachel Green at the beginning of the series from her grandmother. It’s across the hallway from a smaller two-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment Chandler Bing and Joey Tribbiani share for much of the 10-season show. Given Monica’s profession as a chef, Rachel’s as a waitress and, later, a junior buyer and Joey’s as an out-of-work actor and odd jobs doer, it’s safe to assume they could never afford prices for a pad that spacious if they were paying market rent. (It’s understood that Monica took on her grandma’s rent-controlled status, but Joey and Chandler wouldn’t have such breaks.) Chandler’s job in IT probably helped boost their collective incomes, but if they were to rent the same spaces today, at least one “Friend” would definitely need a guarantor.
It was cheaper in the ’90s when the show was shot, but what would it cost to live there today? The four friends (and, at times, Phoebe Buffay and Ross Geller, too) lived in the pricey West Village, allegedly at 90 Bedford St. near Grove Street. The last apartment there, recently on the market, was a one-bed, one-bath for $2,950/month (an old-looking, small perch) that tried to boost its status by touting its location “in the extremely sought out Friends building.” Before that, a similarly sized pad went for $3,400.
These rents are low-balling it, likely because the real-life apartments at 90 Bedford are less nice than the “Friends” pads. Citi Habitats’ March 2016 rental report put the West Village’s average two-bedroom rent at $4,030. And that doesn’t even take into account the terrace! It’s fair to say that they’d be paying well over $4,000/month for Monica and Rachel’s pad, the centerpiece of the show, and in the high $3,000s for Chandler and Joey’s.
‘Seinfeld’
Location: Upper West Side
Cost today: $3,400/month
Jerry Seinfeld’s unfussy bachelor pad was a one-bedroom at 129 W. 81st St., a stone’s throw from the American Museum of Natural History between Columbus and Amsterdam avenues on the Upper West Side. A one-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment with an open kitchen and room for a dining table and a small home office in the living room, Seinfeld’s pad may seem like a stretch for a stand-up comic, but according to Scouting NY, “This was the actual building where Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David lived in Manhattan during their early stand-up days.”
Note that Apartment 5A, the one-bed, one-bath where Jerry lived, doesn’t exist in the real-life, four-story walk-up. These days, the 81st Street building only has about one apartment open up for rent per year. It recently had a few studios hit the market that rented for from $1,775 to $1,975 a month.
The building is an anomaly in the area: Zumper says median one-bedroom rents on the Upper West Side total $3,580, while Citi Habitats data shows the average rent for a one-bedroom as $3,836 (Kramer as your next-door neighbor not included).
‘Sex and the City’
Location: Upper East Side
Cost today: $2,700/month
Clotheshorse writer Carrie Bradshaw allegedly paid just $700/month for her rent-controlled apartment at 245 E. 73rd St. for the bulk of the beloved series. It’s a light-filled one-bedroom, one-bathroom with a giant walk-in closet and a generously sized bathroom.
Sorry, “SATC” fans, there are more than a few inaccuracies here. First, the outside shots of the leafy, brownstone-lined street were actually filmed in the West Village on Perry Street. Second, that address on 73rd Street, near Second Avenue, doesn’t actually exist. The last door on the block is No. 243.
Also, living on the Upper East Side can be pricey, especially if you’re not lucky enough to nab a rent-regulated apartment. Median rent for a one-bedroom in the area hovers around $2,850, as per Zumper — Citi Habitats says the average in March was $2,515. Add extra for that closet!
‘The Big Bang Theory’
Location: Pasadena, Calif.
Cost: $2,000/month
Sheldon and Leonard live in Apartment 4A — a two-bedroom, one-bathroom with a giant living room and open kitchen — in a building with a perennially broken elevator not far from the university where they work (Caltech, in real life). Across the hall is Penny, an aspiring actress and waitress, who lives in a 1BR/1BA of her own. They’re all meant to reside in an apartment complex at 2311 N. Los Robles Ave. in Pasadena, where Caltech is located, northeast of LA.
There aren’t a lot of rentals available on North Robles Avenue right now, especially at the intersection where they’re supposed to be living, but needless to say, the options on the market offer much more space for your money than New York City. (That said, researchers/postdocs and servers at the Cheesecake Factory aren’t rolling in cash.) According to Zillow, there’s a three-bedroom, two-bathroom house for $2,400/month, while a one-bed, one-bath apartment is renting for $1,250 and another for $1,150.
‘How I Met Your Mother’
Location: Upper West Side
Cost: $3,000/month
The two-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment where Ted, Marshall, Lily and Robin all live at different points during the series is ostensibly on the Upper West Side, but no real address is ever disclosed. It’s common knowledge that they live above their local watering hole, MacLaren’s, which is based on McGee’s pub on West 55th Street. In one episode, the closest subway stop is shown to be the 1 train at 86th Street and Broadway; in another, the address of a building, 150 W. 85th St., is listed as the starting point on a series of directions. That building is now owned by Manhattan Country School.
In April 2016, a one-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment at that address rented for about $2,200. Citi Habitats says average rent for a West Side two-bedroom is $2,875. The apartment in “How I Met Your Mother” has two large bedrooms, plus a living room big enough for a home office on a platform and an open kitchen, so let’s add a bit for that extra space. Split four ways, that’s not too bad.
‘Will & Grace’
Location: Upper West Side
Cost: $6,750/month
Those lucky ducks Will and Grace lived in major prewar grandeur at 155 Riverside Drive. They shared a giant two-bedroom, two-bathroom place with outdoor space. The living room is especially spacious, with a separate alcove for a reading nook.
According to that Citi Habitats report from March, the average rent for a two-bedroom on the UWS is $2,875. But not in a building like this one, for an apartment of that size! In real life, their exact unit, 9C, is but a mere one-bedroom that last rented in 2013 for $4,095. The last two-bedroom pad to rent there had just one bathroom and leased for $5,595 in January. A two-bed, two-bath totaling about 1,400 square feet rented for $6,595 in 2014 — but it didn’t have outdoor space. The only other apartments with two bathrooms have three bedrooms (and rented for about $8,000 a month in recent years), but the square footage is probably comparable to Will and Grace’s pad.
Will, a corporate lawyer, probably owned the apartment — with interior-designer Grace clutching to his financial coattails — since they were allowed to renovate it without too much trouble. In reality, 150 Riverside is mostly rentals, but for comparison, a nearby 2BR/2BA co-op (funnily enough, at 160 Riverside, where Tina Fey’s Liz Lemon lives on “30 Rock”) sold for just under $2 million. Dig deep into those wallets, folks, if you want to live like these two.
‘Gilmore Girls’
Location: Washington, Conn.
Cost: $500,000
The adorable town of Stars Hollow, Conn. — where Lorelai and Rory Gilmore banter with a mess of quirky neighbors, a gazebo dominates a picturesque main square and neighborhood meetings are held in a dance studio — doesn’t exist. (The show’s passionate fans, eagerly awaiting the reboot, emit loud sobs.) Amy Sherman-Palladino, the show’s creator, once stayed with her husband at the Mayflower Inn in Washington, Conn., and the show is in part based on that experience.
Reports also cite other hamlets in the state, such as Wallingford, Essex, Kent, New Milford and Litchfield, as having inspired Stars Hollow. New Milford, for one, has a familiar-looking gazebo.
In Washington, Conn., according to Realtor.com, listings for three-bedroom, two-bathroom homes with a porch befitting Rory and Lorelai start at about $400,000 and top out around $1 million.
‘The Simpsons’
Location: Springfield, Ore.
Cost: $375,000
According to a replica built in 1997, parents Homer and Marge and kids Bart, Lisa and Maggie live in a four-bedroom, 2,200-square-foot home. The replica was in Nevada, but 742 Evergreen Terrace is meant to be in Springfield. (“Simpons” creator Matt Groening revealed in 2012 that he based his series after the Springfield in Oregon, not the one in Illinois or many other states. Groening later said it could be any town in the US.) The replica used 25 different color swatches to mimic the colorful animated home. In the floor plan, you can see the family’s iconic red couch, which is featured in the opening credits of every episode.
Realtor.com listings for four-bedroom, three-bathroom houses in Springfield, Ore., start at about $150,000 — a bargain by the standards of most of these shows — and top out at about $600,000.
‘The Mary Tyler Moore Show’
Location: Minneapolis
Cost: $1.99 million
Independent woman Mary Tyler Moore’s apartment was a studio on the attic floor of a Queen Anne Victorian house at “119 North Weatherly” in the Kenwood neighborhood of Minneapolis. Mary’s initial reaction to the house in the first scene of the pilot episode was, “Wow. Hey, it really is charming, isn’t it?” One episode says that she rents the apartment for $145/month — remember, this was the ’70s.
Fun fact: Mary moved to a new apartment in Season 6 because the owner of the house at 2104 Kenwood Parkway, which was used for exterior shots, was tired of all the tourists stopping. The owner allegedly discouraged the cameramen from filming more exterior shots of the house.
Guess what? 2014 Kenwood Parkway is currently for sale. With an asking price of $1,995,000, it’s pricey for Minneapolis, but the seven-bedroom, nine-bathroom, 9,500-square-foot house is “Minnesota’s version of Graceland,” thanks to all the MTM fans. There’s also a sauna, weight room and three-car garage. Good thing Mary’s not living there anymore . . . she couldn’t afford the mortgage.
‘The Golden Girls’
Location: Miami
Cost: $3.4 million
6151 Richmond St. — which doesn’t exist in real life, though 6151 Richmond Drive does — was originally owned by Blanche Devereaux and her husband. When he died, Rose Nylund and Dorothy Zbornak moved in as her roommates. Later, Sophia Petrillo joined them when the Shady Pines retirement home burned down. The comprehensive “GG” wiki notes that there were a lot of continuity errors with the house set, such as entrances, exits and views that couldn’t possibly exist.
Because Richmond Street isn’t real, it’s hard to gauge the value of the fictional Miami property, given that real estate prices there vary wildly based on neighborhood. But the exterior shots of the house were actually of a four-bedroom, four-bathroom, ranch-style house located in LA’s posh Brentwood neighborhood at 245 North Saltair Ave. Though it’s no longer on the market, its estimated value is somewhere between $3.32 million and $3.58 million. Not a price for sassy retirees, that’s for sure.