Mr. Television
06-04-2013, 11:03 AM
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/03/nyregion/fewer-fans-visit-all-in-the-family-tv-home.html
Stifled by Time’s Passage, Fewer Fans Visit the Bunkers’ TV Home
By VIVIAN YEE
Published: June 2, 2013
Years ago, they came in droves: the fans who knocked on the door, begged to be shown around the living room, and snapped photos in front of the little row house in Queens that, on their television screens, anyway, belonged to Archie Bunker and his wife, Edith.
But when the news arrived on Saturday that Jean Stapleton — best known for playing the sweet, daffy Edith to Carroll O’Connor’s cranky, bigoted Archie on “All in the Family” for most of the 1970s — had died, only a few gawkers and a lone television news crew came out to reminisce over 89-70 Cooper Avenue, a little blue house across from St. John’s Cemetery with a shiny flagpole, a floral wreath on the door and a tidy front garden of pansies and potted plants.
“There used to be a lot,” as many as 20 a month, said Peter Alcuri, 75, whose back porch faces Cooper Avenue. “No more.”
After all, it has been decades since the everyday dramas of Edith and Archie were played out weekly in millions of American living rooms, as Edith tried to broker peace between Archie and his black neighbor, George Jefferson, and he would constantly refer to her as a dingbat.
“I don’t think the women today would like that,” Mr. Alcuri mused.
It has been years since the nearly all-white, blue-collar neighborhood of the show matched reality in Glendale, where the Cooper Avenue house sits, or Astoria, where the show was set. When the show was running, recalled Mr. Alcuri, who has lived in the neighborhood for 54 years, the block was full of older residents of German, Irish and Italian descent, whose children later sold the houses. “Now it’s all mixed,” he said, with more Asian and Hispanic families.
In the next yard stood Gustavo Recalde, 41, a five-year resident of the block who said he had never heard of “All in the Family.”
“I don’t know about it,” he said.
In 2000, when Jeff Myhre, 51, moved in a few doors down from 89-70 Cooper, the mover was delighted to inform him that he was living on “the Archie Bunker block.” That struck a chord with Mr. Myhre, who grew up in suburban Denver watching “All in the Family,” just because “it was on,” and earnestly discussing the latest plot turns on the playground the next Monday, he said.
It did not resonate so much with Mr. Myhre’s wife, who hails from Alabama and is black. (She is more of a “Sanford and Son” fan.)
“Archie’s block has changed a little,” Mr. Myhre, who is white, said, chuckling.
But Archie’s son-in-law, Michael Stivic, would be glad to know that the block still has at least one die-hard liberal in Mr. Myhre, whose wife often compares him to Meathead, as Archie nicknamed Michael.
Michael may have been at odds with Archie, but he has his devotees on the block. Stan Podolsky, a fan of the show who has lived in the house attached to the Bunker residence for 15 years, said he identifies with Michael because they both are Polish.
(Lest anyone misinterpret the fictional geography of the block, he clarified that he does not live in the Jeffersons’ house. Rather, in his own parlance, “I’m that Italian family,” the Lorenzos, who lived next door to the Bunkers.)
Mr. Podolsky, too, mused that only a handful of people came by to see the house each year.
“Life goes on, I guess,” he said. But he noted that the show lives on in reruns on cable channels like Nick at Nite and TV Land.
Does he ever watch them?
“Of course! I’m old!”
It is probably just as well that the tourists have thinned. On Sunday, when the woman who now lives in the house heard the screechy strains of the show’s theme song, “Those Were the Days,” outside, she slammed the door. Neighbors said she was closely related to Dorothy Brandow, who lived in the house from 1924, when her parents bought it, until at least 2001. Ms. Brandow died in 2006, leaving the house to its current owner.
Ms. Brandow may have liked the attention no better than the house’s current occupant. When a reporter called after Mr. O’Connor died in 2001, her response was swift.
“Oh, good grief,” she said.
Stifled by Time’s Passage, Fewer Fans Visit the Bunkers’ TV Home
By VIVIAN YEE
Published: June 2, 2013
Years ago, they came in droves: the fans who knocked on the door, begged to be shown around the living room, and snapped photos in front of the little row house in Queens that, on their television screens, anyway, belonged to Archie Bunker and his wife, Edith.
But when the news arrived on Saturday that Jean Stapleton — best known for playing the sweet, daffy Edith to Carroll O’Connor’s cranky, bigoted Archie on “All in the Family” for most of the 1970s — had died, only a few gawkers and a lone television news crew came out to reminisce over 89-70 Cooper Avenue, a little blue house across from St. John’s Cemetery with a shiny flagpole, a floral wreath on the door and a tidy front garden of pansies and potted plants.
“There used to be a lot,” as many as 20 a month, said Peter Alcuri, 75, whose back porch faces Cooper Avenue. “No more.”
After all, it has been decades since the everyday dramas of Edith and Archie were played out weekly in millions of American living rooms, as Edith tried to broker peace between Archie and his black neighbor, George Jefferson, and he would constantly refer to her as a dingbat.
“I don’t think the women today would like that,” Mr. Alcuri mused.
It has been years since the nearly all-white, blue-collar neighborhood of the show matched reality in Glendale, where the Cooper Avenue house sits, or Astoria, where the show was set. When the show was running, recalled Mr. Alcuri, who has lived in the neighborhood for 54 years, the block was full of older residents of German, Irish and Italian descent, whose children later sold the houses. “Now it’s all mixed,” he said, with more Asian and Hispanic families.
In the next yard stood Gustavo Recalde, 41, a five-year resident of the block who said he had never heard of “All in the Family.”
“I don’t know about it,” he said.
In 2000, when Jeff Myhre, 51, moved in a few doors down from 89-70 Cooper, the mover was delighted to inform him that he was living on “the Archie Bunker block.” That struck a chord with Mr. Myhre, who grew up in suburban Denver watching “All in the Family,” just because “it was on,” and earnestly discussing the latest plot turns on the playground the next Monday, he said.
It did not resonate so much with Mr. Myhre’s wife, who hails from Alabama and is black. (She is more of a “Sanford and Son” fan.)
“Archie’s block has changed a little,” Mr. Myhre, who is white, said, chuckling.
But Archie’s son-in-law, Michael Stivic, would be glad to know that the block still has at least one die-hard liberal in Mr. Myhre, whose wife often compares him to Meathead, as Archie nicknamed Michael.
Michael may have been at odds with Archie, but he has his devotees on the block. Stan Podolsky, a fan of the show who has lived in the house attached to the Bunker residence for 15 years, said he identifies with Michael because they both are Polish.
(Lest anyone misinterpret the fictional geography of the block, he clarified that he does not live in the Jeffersons’ house. Rather, in his own parlance, “I’m that Italian family,” the Lorenzos, who lived next door to the Bunkers.)
Mr. Podolsky, too, mused that only a handful of people came by to see the house each year.
“Life goes on, I guess,” he said. But he noted that the show lives on in reruns on cable channels like Nick at Nite and TV Land.
Does he ever watch them?
“Of course! I’m old!”
It is probably just as well that the tourists have thinned. On Sunday, when the woman who now lives in the house heard the screechy strains of the show’s theme song, “Those Were the Days,” outside, she slammed the door. Neighbors said she was closely related to Dorothy Brandow, who lived in the house from 1924, when her parents bought it, until at least 2001. Ms. Brandow died in 2006, leaving the house to its current owner.
Ms. Brandow may have liked the attention no better than the house’s current occupant. When a reporter called after Mr. O’Connor died in 2001, her response was swift.
“Oh, good grief,” she said.