Reel Estate: Ridgewood is full of Weird Loners
Updated: 1:56 p.m.
When a movie or TV show is set in New York City—and if the people making it are savvy—real estate becomes part of the story itself. In Reel Estate, we look at some of the more memorable domiciles to grace the screen.
Given its metamorphosis into the "next Bushwick" (or "Quooklyn," if you will), it was fairly inevitable that Ridgewood would eventually wind up in a sitcom. And it actually got a pretty good one with Weird Loners, which premiered on Fox back in March (and has since been canceled). Just so long as you don't expect it to actually have anything to do with Ridgewood.
The show follows four single (and arguably weird) thirtysomethings who, through a series of sitcom-ish circumstances, wind up living in two adjoining townhouses in the neighborhood. The only real Queens references we get here are constant nods to the Mets (Eric's a superfan), and Caryn taking a pensive late night stroll to Flushing Meadows Corona Park—a solid four-mile walk from her purported neighborhood. And in case the brand-spanking-new cleanliness of the stoop wasn't a dead giveaway, the show is, indeed, filmed in L.A.:
At the outset, Eric has been taking care of his father and living in the house on the left, and Caryn lives with a roommate (who also refers to her as a landlady) in the house on the right. After Eric's father dies, his cousin Stosh turns up with an offer to move in, having just been fired from his job, and more pertinently, kicked out of the "company-owned condo" he'd been living in thanks to his job as a dental products salesperson. (Related: if your mid-level job in the dental products industry entitles you to free lodging in a posh Manhattan apartment, please contact us ASAP. We've got follow-up questions.)
In Caryn's case, she's in need of a roommate after calling off her planned engagement (for which she kicked out the aforementioned roomie), and by the end of the first episode, has asked also-newly-single artist Zara to move in.
As for the actual houses, Eric's looks fairly realistic, with a tchotchke-centric decorating scheme leftover from his elderly Polish parents (Stosh notes at one point that the place hasn't changed at all since 1989):
Caryn's place is much sleeker, with more modern decor, as well as giant bedrooms, and a giant kitchen that appears to lead out into a backyard. Troublingly, though, the houses seem to be set up in such a way that Stosh can climb from his and Eric's attic directly into Caryn and Zara's home:
While the rent and money situation is never really discussed in the first few episodes (the world of TV real estate seems pretty chill), it seems like a safe assumption that Eric owns his house, as he'd have inherited it from his parents. And while it feels like a stretch to assume that Caryn would be a homeowner, she never seems that worried about rent, and her ex-roommate did make that comment about her being the landlady. As we've written before, options for buyers tend to be pretty sparse in Ridgewood, and the only comparable listing we can find in the neighborhood is this $625,000, 4-bedroom townhouse. Cheaper than most standalone houses in the five boroughs, yes, but still, pretty impressive for a toll booth worker (Eric) and a dental hygienist (Caryn). Maybe the trend pieces were right: we should all move to Ridgewood.
Related:
Ridgewood: The dirt cheap, radioactive Queens nabe that may be the next Greenpoint
Reel Estate: Buy an apartment in Seinfeld's infamous "doorman" building
Reel Estate: Empire lets Chicago stand in for Bushwick
Reel Estate: Kimmy Schmidt actually has a pretty great apartment
