mad men

Vulture Visits Don Draper’s Apartment

106 Waverly, right next door to Don’s nonexistent 104

Sunday night’s episode of Mad Men revealed the address of Don Draper’s bachelor pad to be 104 Waverly Place, Apartment 3R, just off Washington Square Park. Even in late 1964, when Don moved in, it was a prime block: Bob Dylan’s first New York apartment was just south of Don’s at 161 West 4th Street; Edward Hopper was living out his last days just down the street at 3 Washington Square North; and Corie and Paul from Neil Simon’s Barefoot in the Park, a smash hit on Broadway at the time, purportedly lived at 111 Waverly Place. Don’s morning walk through the park could very well have taken him past these people, photographed by Diane Arbus in 1965. Juicy stuff. Imagine our disappointment, then, to discover that 104 Waverly Place doesn’t actually exist.

Courtesy of AMC

There is a 106 Waverly Place, but after that, where 104 would be, there’s just a service entrance to 29 Washington Square West and the office of Dr. Anthony Starpoli, gastroenterologist. What a shame: If Don’s apartment were here today, he would have lived a mere three doors down from Mario Batali’s restaurant Babbo, and right around the corner from a set of NYU dorms — the perfect location for a guy with a taste for younger women.

Courtesy of AMCThere is a 106 Waverly Place, but after that, where 104 would be, there’s just a service entrance to 29 Washington Square West and the office of Dr. Anthony Starpoli, gastroenterologist. What a shame: If Don’s apartment were here today, he would have lived a mere three doors down from Mario Batali’s restaurant Babbo, and right around the corner from a set of NYU dorms — the perfect location for a guy with a taste for younger women.

Photo: Jillian GoodmanSo, what’s going on, Matthew Weiner? We used to have so much fun figuring out the sources of all those references. Does he really resent his fans’ fetish for detail? (Dr. Lyle Evans, mentioned by Roger on Sunday’s episode, doesn’t appear to exist either.) Or was Weiner just hoping to save some village resident the hassle of nosy fans like us? Maybe Weiner just got his inspiration from the plaque at 32 Waverly Place, on the other side of the park, honoring one John W. Draper and the founding of the American Chemical Society: This Draper, who lived during the late nineteenth century, was a photographer and photochemist who encouraged his colleagues to “deliver unflinchingly to others the truths that Nature has delivered to us.” Nope, doesn’t sound much like Don to us.

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Vulture Visits Don Draper’s Apartment