Jean Stapleton, a born-and-bred New Yorker immortalized in pop culture as the iconic Edith Bunker, died Friday in her Manhattan home at the age of 90.
Over eight seasons as a co-star on “All in the Family,” Stapleton played the “dingbat” foil to her bigoted TV husband, Archie. Because television shows live forever in reruns, today’s “All in the Family” viewers might not realize how much has changed in the Queens in which Archie and Edith made their home.
Today’s Queens is arguably America’s most diverse county. Its population is 39 percent white, 19 percent black, 23 percent Asian, 27.5 percent Hispanic and 14 percent other. It’s a huge change from the Queens of the white middle-class Bunkers, who were shocked when a black drycleaner, George Jefferson, moved in next door.
Again in contrast to the TV stereotype, Queens evolved racially, culturally and ethnically with barely a peep of unrest. Certainly nothing like, say, Brooklyn’s Crown Heights riots in the early 1990s.
But what of “All in the Family” creator Norman Lear? Well, according to the ZIP code listed on his political contributions, Lear lives in the Brentwood hills of Los Angeles — ZIP code 90049, to be exact.
That neighborhood’s population?
It’s 84 percent white, 1.4 percent black, 8.7 percent Asian, with the remainder “other” and multiracial.
That almost looks like Archie Bunker’s dream spot. And there’s the rub: To live in a neighborhood whose racial mix would make him feel comfortable, you’d need the wealth of, say, a liberal TV producer.
Rest in peace, Edith.