Above is one of the strangest show-biz artifacts I’ve ever come across. Apparently there is a Lucy/Desi museum in Jamestown New York (birthplace of both Lucille Ball and Lucy Ricardo). Among the large collection of memorabilia is a full reconstruction of the set of the Ricardo’s apartment. Above you’ll see a short, shaky but quite delightful look at it. It’s in color too, thus giving the much-viewed set a strikingly strange reality. The spinet piano is there, residing in the center of the room under the bay window, as is the fireplace, the couch, the kitchen–the whole sheer.

I always loved the way the address of the building changed from episode to episode (though it was always on East 68th Street). I also dug how loopy the floorplan was. The Mertz’s building was a brownstone which would have been no more than 20 feet wide, but somehow the three rooms are stretched out over a space that would have to be at least 40 feet wide, with the kitchen incongruously on an angle with a back porch off the side (thus making it a side porch). There was also the nice backstory of the Mertz’s having been in vaudeville and retiring to the life of do-nothing landlords. Presumably the building was bought with savings from years of tank-town touring.



 Subscribe in a reader