If you're quiet, you can almost hear the graduating class of 2015 clicking away on Craigslist, the sacrificial lambs of fraudulent links and dashed dreams. Most of them will, in fact, move to New York. And it will be terrible. A one-bedroom with a walk-in closet on a freelancer's budget? Sure, Carrie did it. A whitewashed Nolita aerie that's never more than a stone's throw away from a cup of organic coffee? Shoshanna had it, why shouldn't I? And, what about an insufferably shabby chic apartment with a wrought iron terrace? Well, Friends wasn't that unreasonable. But the fact of the matter is, it was. Even with your kindly Midwestern father footing the bill, you don't stand a chance. Television has ruined apartments for you. In honor of that storied tradition of despair, we've assembled the 8 most flagrant of those lies—ranking them by how much they've ruined our lives.
Show: Will & Grace
Level of Mystification: 1
Projected Rent Per Person: $2,250
Will Truman and Grace Adler, respectively a lawyer and interior designer, have hitched their saddle up to 155 Riverside Drive. The most recent rentals at their Upper West Side address (a one-bedroom, mind you) hover around the $3,100 mark, so it's safe to say that a drop-dead gorgeous two-bedroom lies somewhere in the $4,500 region. Fine, this one gets a stamp of approval.
Show: Broad City
Level of Mystification: 2
Projected Rent Per Person: $1,000
Ah recent graduates, you've found a hero in Abbi Jacobsen. Abbi and Illana remain the most relatable heroines on television. They hoard coupons, have jobs that are indisputably the worst, and are haunted by roommates they hate. If we assume that Abbi's apartment is a little less than the $2,500 average for a cozy bedroom in Astoria and that Bever('s girlfriend) pays rent, this one is pretty doable. To quote her best friend and soul mate Illana, "I'm gonna be a grown-ass woman and do my taxes for once without my mommy and daddy."
Show: 30 Rock
Level of Mystification: 4
Projected Rents Per Person: $3,800
Liz Lemon, television's delightfully meta television writer, lives smack dab in the middle of the Upper West Side. Alongside a hoagie tax and night cheese deliveries, that's a pretty hefty rent for the writer of a dubiously successful sketch comedy show. And Zumper agrees with us, a one-bedroom goes for about $3,500 a month. But micro apartment this thing is not, it's pretty spacious. She could make it work, but let's all raise a single eyebrow.
Show: Seinfeld
Level of Mystification: 6
Projected Rents Per Person: $3,350
Wanna hear a joke? A lowly comedian (His career was, well, stalled initially) rents out a roomy and enviable Upper West Side one-bedroom for $3,350 a month. Sure, it might have worked in the '90s, but Jerry is going to have to set his sights on another apartment if he hopes to rent in 2015.
Show: New Girl
Level of Mystification: 7
Projected Rents Per Person: $3,000
Ahem, Zooey Deschanel has set her doe eyes on the wrong converted loft. Make no mistake, it has all the fixings of post-industrial luxury bachelor pad—exposed wood beams, brick accent walls, purposefully mix-matched furniture, a too perfectly oxidized sliding metal door—in a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood. But, unless her landlord accepts checks in ukulele ballads, we're not sure how a young, scantily-salaried teacher expects to fork over $3,000 every month in rent.
Show: Girls
Level of Mystification: 7
Projected Rents Per Person: $3,350
If you go to NYU and have enough supplementary space for a craft room, then we'd like to congratulate you on having exceedingly wealthy parents. Shoshanna's SoHo apartment supposedly costs $2,100 a month, but our friends at Zumper place that a bit closer to $3,350. Even by parents-who-pay-for-everything-and-question-nothing standards, that's a pretty penny.
Show: Friends
Level of Mystification: 9
Projected Rents Per Person: $3,500
Monica paid for her 1,500 square-feet apartment with lies, the spirit of her dead grandmother, and some sort of rent controlled situation that defied the laws of reason. Today, an apartment like Monica's might fetch $14,000 a month. So, let's be generous and cut it down to $7,000, accounting for the prices of the late '90s and Monica's "deal." That's still leaves us with a completely implausible $3,500 per person.
Show: Sex & The City
Level of Mystification: Nope, we're done.
Projected Rents Per Person:
Clench your teeth, close your eyes, let the rage blackout wash over you. Take a moment to scoff away at Carrie Bradshaw's highly unlikely $750/month rent-controlled apartment. In a brownstone. On the Upper East Side. With a walk-in closet. Let's not even deign to analyze the fraught logic here.
∙ NoMad Is Now the Most Expensive 'Hood for NYC Renters [Curbed NY]
∙ Renters Week 2015 [Curbed]
Loading comments...