Bert and Ernie's Rent

[anytimepally]

How much do you guys think Bert and Ernie pay for rent? And where does the money come from? Or do you think maybe Gordon and Susan cover it for them?

It seems to me like it's a pretty nice apartment . . . certainly nicer than the one I'm living in at the moment.

 

[Ilikemuppets]

I've always wandered the question to this myself.

 

[JLG]

Well, all I know is that when the show started, New York City rent---more specifically Manhattan rent---could be pretty durn cheap. Sure, they lived together to cut down on expenses, but they weren't hurtin'. They didn't look like they make a huge amount of dough, but they live decently enough.

However, NOWadays Manhattan rents are through the roof. Manhattan is coming more and more to mean "upper-middle class." It's not universally true, of course, but much more so than 40 years ago---even 20 years ago.

Sesame Street very clearly seems to be in Manhattan, not Brooklyn, the Bronx or anywhere else, so I don't know how Ernie and Bert (or the Robinsons or Rodriguezes, for that matter!) are holding on to their modest little brownstone.

 

[RedPiggy]

Maybe they all pulled a Pepe and got the whole thing declared a historical landmark.

 

[Erine81981]

Maybe Bert's Aunt Maybell helps out till Bert and Ernie get a job or maybe they help Gordon and Susan or even Maria and Luis with some chores and they get paid that way. This is one of the things i've always wanted to know myself.

 

[ISNorden]

Considering that no character on Sesame Street seems to worry about money, I'd speculate that there's a cadre of Muppetized letters and numbers financing almost everything in the neighborhood. ("Brought to you today by..." and all that... ) They occasionally appear as street-scene characters, after all--and sometimes get VIP treatment when they arrive, as seen on some 1990s episodes.

 

[Drtooth]

How much do you guys think Bert and Ernie pay for rent? And where does the money come from? Or do you think maybe Gordon and Susan cover it for them?

Why, they pay with imagination fun bucks!

For that matter, how the heck did Kramer pay for anything? And as for the Turtles... I guess April gives them stuff, and they fish stuff out of the trash, but everything else just happens to be there with no explaination.

 

[anytimepally]

I'd speculate that there's a cadre of Muppetized letters and numbers financing almost everything in the neighborhood. ("Brought to you today by..." and all that... )

this makes sense

 

[Ilikemuppets]

Sesame Street very clearly seems to be in Manhattan, not Brooklyn, the Bronx or anywhere else

Well I think the neighborhood it's based on is actually in Brooklyn. I don't know how well the toaster repair business is going, But Gordon is a science teacher and Susan is a nurse...

 

[mikebennidict]

The SS set resembles what most NYC neighborhood look like and not just Brooklyn.