Sesame Street (location)



Sesame Street is the titular street where the central characters live on Sesame Street. Officially located in New York City, as is often confirmed by regional references and the adjacent New York subway, Sesame Street was designed to resemble an urban, inner city landscape, recognizable to children although slightly idealized (though urban grunge was still well accounted for thanks to Oscar the Grouch). While many of the inserts took place in puppet-scale interior's, ranging from Bert and Ernie's Bedroom and Charlie's Restaurant to the countless walls or the varying game show sets of Guy Smiley, the main storyline scenes have always focused or at least begun on the street and its environs, outside of special location episodes. It serves as a meeting place for human and Muppet cast members alike.

The most central location is 123 Sesame Street, the apartment building whose front stoops are a frequent gathering place for the main characters, and the home to Susan and Gordon, Maria and Luis, and in the basement apartment, Ernie and Bert. The next significan structure is the building which houses Hooper's Store and the Fix-It Shop (and later Mail-It Shop) below, and apartments (including that of Bob) above. Between the two is a more open courtyard area, dubbed the Arbor, highlighted by an old carriage house/garage decorated with letters, later turned into a daycare center, and more recently into Gina's veterinary office. The surrounding area includes the fire-escape/stairway area, another popular stoop, and items such as a tire swing for the neighborhood and picnic benches, which are often used by patrons of Hooper's.

To the right of 123 are the somewhat more unusual abodes of Oscar the Grouch and Big Bird. Oscar's can is situated upon a pile of crates and often near other debris by the front steps, while a line of salvaged doors demarks the area for Big Bird's Nest, consisting of a large literal bird's nest and many other accessories. From the 1970s through the late 1980s, the itinerant fruit cart of Mr. Macintosh and the rolling hotdog stand belonging to Willy frequently dotted the landscape. In later years, the neighborhood expanded Around the Corner, with a host of new sets, which were eventually dropped. Through it all, the street lamppost has been a constant, the green fixture with it's familiar "123 Sesame Street" sign often seen at the beginning or end of episodes, and which has essentially become the porgram's symbol, used on merchandise and, in variations, on most of the international versions of the show.

The actual studio sets used for Sesame Street have changed over the years, but for most of the recent seasons, the show has been filmed at Kaufman Astoria Studios, utilizing stage G. In the feature films Follow That Bird and The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland, the street was present, though more tangential, but in both cases the usual studio set was abandoned, and a more elaborate version reconstructed. Follow That Bird was filmed in Toronto, and the new street included an auto mechanic's, bakery, and other buildings, while in Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland, a landromat was added, and an assortment of outdoor cafes and vendors, including a snowcone stand.