There are certain dividing lines in New York City that clearly split neighborhoods. In fact, there was a song from the soundtrack of a "Blaxploitation" film, sung by Bobby Womack called "Across 110th Street," with the area north of it being Harlem.
But that was the title song of a film from the 1970s. Turn the clock forward to 1990, and you have this series: "Married People."
110th Street is right, as that was the setting for this sitcom about three couples sharing a brownstone. Nick and Olivia Williams (Ray Aranha and Barbara Montgomery) are the owners of the building and live on the first floor. Harlem was going through a "gentrification" period at the time, they bought and refurbished the brownstone and rented out the floors above.
Living on the second floor were Elizabeth and Russell Meyers (Bess Armstrong and Jay Thomas) who were somewhat unique for TV as she was the more successful of the two, being an attorney, and he was a freelance writer.
And on the top floor were the newlyweds, Cindy and Allen Campbell (Megan Gallivan and Chris Young) who worked out an arrangement where Allen attended college while Cindy supported them both by waiting tables at a local restaurant.
Really though, it wasn't called "110th Street" and it wasn't even referred to as "Cathedral Parkway." Here, the street was known as "Central Park North," which is technically true, as it is the northern border of the park, but New Yorkers never call it that... unless, of course, they are Real Estate Agents!
Nick was the main antagonist. He was gruff and grumpy and since he was the landlord, was the guy everybody went to when there was any problem. Olivia kept him from being too rough on everyone else and smoothed over any rough patches with her warm and sweet personality. Cindy and Allen were playful and learning what married life was all about with the give and take they had to use to get through those early years.
And we have a couple of actors we've already seen, making a return appearance to the list of the 400 Most Notable TV Shows Set In NYC: Bess Armstrong was in 381's "On Our Own," and Jay Thomas was in 355's "Love & War." There are just some actors that help bring the flavor of The City to a program and that is a crucial element in making a show a bit more realistic, and these two fit the bill, though an extra addition is Elizabeth's baby bump, as she and Russell are expecting their first child.
New York played a part because the community was, at that point in time, one of the more diverse in the city, as that somewhat controversial word, gentrification (which we could talk about at length, but that wouldn't be appropriate for a discussion about a comedy show!) brought people seeking affordable housing into particular parts of the city, and any property bordering Central Park, no matter where it was, was a good place to be.
"Married People" varied from week to week as the main plot focused on one of the couples, while the other two had some differing and amusing subplots to play off of the top storyline that week.
The program offered up some genuine laughs with these three diverse couples, their generational and class differences making them focus on separate elements, and played up a lot of the problems they faced, many of them specifically related to New York, but also the willingness of all of the couples to work together to find solutions to those difficulties... they started to seem a bit more like a family than random tenants sharing a building. That's pretty high praise, I think.
