Commercials for ABC’s new show ‘666 Park Avenue‘ have been all over TV lately, but the show is full of woefully inaccurate details regarding locations and buildings in New York City.
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| The Ansonia, which is actually not at 666 Park Avenue, Image from Sara Krulwich and the New York Times |
The show’s first major error is the building shown to be ‘666 Park Avenue,’ which is actually The Ansonia, one of the most beautiful and ornate buildings in Manhattan. Unfortunately for the show, it’s not on Park Avenue–and it isn’t even on the East Side! The Ansonia’s actual address is at 2109 Broadway, between 73rd and 74th Streets, in the heart of the Upper West Side.
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| The Drake Hotel From Underwood & Underwood/CORBIS via the WSJ |
The second major mistake in ‘666 Park’ is that they refer to the Ansonia as ‘The Drake,’ which actually was on Park Avenue but no longer exists. Once a beautiful and historic hotel, the building was torn down by developer Harry Macklowe. In its place, none other than 432 Park Avenue is rising, the city’s future tallest building by roof height. Whether rooms at the Drake were haunted or not is up for speculation, but any ghosts that did reside in the hotel are now homeless.
Furthermore, there actually is no building in Manhattan with a 666 Park Avenue address. No buildings actually front onto Park avenue between 67th and 68th Streets. If a building on the block did have a main entrance on Park, they certainly wouldn’t be gauche enough to use a 666 address, as even in New York many buildings lack an official 13th floor. A 666 address on Park would never exist.
If there were any ghosts at The Drake Hotel, hopefully they’re haunting Harry Macklowe for tearing down such a beautiful piece of New York’s heritage when so many ugly buildings currently line Park Avenue. Nothing a major re-zoning can’t take care of, but still–why can’t producers simply fact check before putting a show on the air?
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Are we to surmise then that 666 5th Avenue is super gauche? Top of the sixes to ya!
You do realize the show is fiction right… right….
Obviously it’s fiction. It doesn’t hurt to get geography right, though.
Robert: any building home to Hollister’s flagship has to be a little bit gauche. Still, the Uniqlo is fantastic!
The address of the building in the show is 999 Park Ave, it’s the way the light hits it to make it “666”. As someone said above, it is fictional.
Psst . . . it’s TV!