• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, November 1, 2023

By happenstance last Sunday around noon, I found myself a block away from the old “Friends” building and walked over to see it.

It is in the West Village at the corner of Grove and Bedford streets and for a number of years now, it has attracted tourists who take their selfies and exclaim with a thrill, “Oh, my God, that’s where the 'Friends' lived!”

They did not actually live there, of course. The building is simply the one the producers of “Friends” chose to serve as the exterior of the building where Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) shared an apartment with her friend, Monica (Courteney Cox).

The show’s apartments were sets built on sound stages in California.

Some of the show’s stars have reportedly visited the West Village building, but it is doubtful they ever spent meaningful time there, and certainly never lived there.

So, despite the fact that "Friends" was never filmed there, this quaint New York City intersection was more crowded than usual last Sunday following the news on Saturday that Matthew Perry, 54, had died at home in California.

In the days that followed, the building became a kind of Ground Zero for “Friends” fans in need of a place to mourn

Floral bouquets piled up at the base of a streetlamp. TV news used the site as a backdrop for their reports.

Most of the people gathered there on a drizzly, gray, chilly Sunday morning were members of the generation for whom “Friends” was most meaningful.

The show aired for 10 seasons from 1994 to 2004 on NBC, intersecting with the era’s other storied NBC sitcoms -- “Seinfeld” (1989-98), “Frasier” (1993-2004) and “Mad About You” (1992-99), to name three of them. 

While “Seinfeld” and “Frasier” satisfied a TV viewer’s craving for flat-out riotous comedy, “Friends” connected to its audience in more profound ways.

The six characters of “Friends” were friends at a formative time in their young-adult lives, a situation in this situation-comedy that resonated with millions who were then experiencing the same thing.

Few who have loved “Seinfeld” for the last 30 years have ever thought of Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer as their friends, though their antics are among the best-known in the history of television.

But for many, the six “Friends” -- Monica, Rachel, Pheobe (Lisa Kudrow), Joey (Matt LeBlanc), Ross (David Schwimmer) and Chandler (Perry) -- came to feel like real friends in one of those rare and peculiar instances in which a television show connects profoundly and personally with its audience.

And now, the unthinkable has happened: One of them has suddenly died -- their friend, Chandler Bing -- drawing them together to mourn at a site that, to them, feels like home.

Above photo courtesy of HBO Max from “Friends: The Reunion” (2021). Matthew Perry (left) with David Schwimmer.