Many of the greatest television shows ever aired have taken place in New York City's five boroughs, spanning over half a century of television history and including both sitcoms and dramas. We could list 100 such shows without much difficulty, but we've narrowed it down to the top 10 of all time -- based on a combination of commercial popularity, critical acclaim, New York-iness, and a dash of the arbitrary.
No list would be complete without this New York standby that ran for a remarkable 20 seasons on NBC and seemingly employed every popular New York theater actor in one episode or another during its run. The detectives and attorneys changed with some frequency over its run, but the setting of New York was consistent throughout.
This offbeat late-70s/early-80s comedy about a group of NYC taxi drivers drew critical plaudits, including three Emmy wins for Outstanding Comedy Series. Many members of the young cast went on to be famous in other shows and movies, like Tony Danza, Danny DeVito, Andy Kaufman and Christopehr Lloyd. The opening sequence features a cab driving across the Queensboro Bridge.
With time, this Tina Fey sitcom (which, unlike several shows on this list, was actually filmed in New York) may move up these rankings. The sitcom, about the antics of Liz Lemon and her cast and crew as they film a weekly sketch show, gets funnier on repeat viewings and had an absolutely killer last season and finale. Extra credit for references that only New Yorkers are likely to get, like making fun of the G train.
Only one show, which we’ll get to later, defined '90s culture on television more completely than Friends. Everyone who paid even the slightest attention to pop culture knew the status of the on-again, off-again relationship of Ross and Rachel and could quote memorable lines. (“We were on a break!”) The story of six friends in Manhattan may not have filmed in New York, but Ross taught at New York University and worked at the Museum of Natural History.
Bill Cosby was a stand-up comedy icon and star of action series "I Spy" well before he produced his eponymous show, but "The Cosby Show" is always what he will be best remembered for, along with the signature sweaters Cosby wore on the show. Set in Brooklyn Heights, "The Cosby Show" starred Bill as Cliff Huxtable, an obstetrician, along with his wife Clair and their five children. "The Cosby Show" was the most watched show in America for five years in the 1980s.
Groundbreaking at the time for its frank depictions of women talking about sex, "Sex and the City" was a New York show through and through. From all the hip Manhattan restaurants and clubs that Carrie, Charlotte, Samantha, and Miranda frequented, to the cupcakes of Magnolia bakery, SATC’s New York association is well-known enough to populate "Sex and the City" bus tours that take fans of the show around Manhattan to see locations where important moments occurred.
Short but sweet, this mid-50s series aired only 39 episodes during its run. Set in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, "The Honeymooners" was notable at the time for being among the first shows to portray working class American lives as less than perfect, and its impact has lasted far beyond its day. Jackie Gleason’s Ralph Kramden, a bus driver for the invented Gotham Bus Company, is still often ranked among the best television characters of all time. A statue of Kramdem stands outside the Port Authority Bus Terminal.
This groundbreaking 1970s series starring Carroll O’Connor as bigoted blue collar worker Archie Bunker took place in Queens and was the most watched show on TV for five straight years. The series touched on issues that were controversial at the time and mined them for laughs. The most famous episode may have been "Sammy's Visit", in which Sammy Davis, Jr. leaves a briefcase in a taxi Archie Bunker is driving; the episode ends with Sammy Davis, Jr. delivering a kiss on the cheek to a stunned Bunker.
Aired in the '00s, but taking place in the '60s, Mad Men is the singular vision of creator Matt Weiner based around an advertising agency located on Madison Avenue. Mad Men brilliantly tracks its characters through the changes New York and the entire country faced during the tumultuous decade of the 1960s, including the gentrification of the then dilapidated Upper West Side. While his accurate depiction of the times, Weiner's fidelity to detail did not stop him from making a prescient stab at the long-awaited Second Avenue subway.
There’s really no other choice. Although it filmed in LA, no show is more quintessentially New York than Seinfeld, with many references only New Yorkers could really love. These references, made by the core four of Jerry, George, Kramer, and Elaine, include a riff on the black and white cookie, the mysterious intersection of 1st and 1st, and the prevalence of pizza places named Rays. "No soup for you," possibly the most famous of dozens of catchphrases the show made popular, came from the Soup Nazi -- was based on real life soup purveyor Al Yeganeh.
