Carrie Bradshaw’s $5 Million Townhouse And Why Escapism Is Defined As Absurd Wealth

Yes, I know Carrie isn’t real.

And Just Like That … — the Sex and the City sequel everyone loved to hate watch — is ending this year after its third season. I was a fan of the original series in all its very 1990s glory. Samantha Jones is one of my favorite TV characters, and it’s fitting that the new series didn’t even bother calling itself Sex and the City without Kim Cattrall. (I loved the summer 2000 promo below.)

Sex and the City was fun, escapist wish fulfillment for 20somethings who imagined themselves spending their 30s hanging out with their friends at trendy nightclubs drinking cosmos (an unfairly maligned cocktail). I was over nightclubs by my 30s but I still enjoyed lazy Sunday morning/afternoon/early evening brunches.

And Just Like That … seemed to offer less relatable escapism. For instance, Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) is absurdly wealthy. She no longer lived in an Upper East Side studio apartment (although she held onto it for sentimental reasons, New York housing crisis be damned). After her husband (Chris Noth) died on his Peloton (not the best product placement), she moved to a one-bedroom West Village apartment, but eventually upgraded to a Gramercy Park townhouse so that she and her disaster boyfriend Aidan would have enough space. If you live in New York, you know how hilarious that is. There are families of five living in one bedrooms that are 600 square feet. (They must have sleeping arrangements like Charlie Bucket’s grandparents.)

A West Village one bedroom can rent for as much as $7,000 a month, and a Gramercy Park brownstone is easily $4 to 5 million. Considering New York’s competitive real estate market, Carrie would need a lot of cash upfront (and a reliably high income) to close on such a place.

I’ll state for the first time that I realize Carrie Bradshaw is a fictional character. I just think depicting her as ridiculously rich is a wasted opportunity. I knew a lot of Carries in the 1990s (many of them inspired by Carrie herself) and they are struggling today. (Carrie used to write a weekly column for a New York newspaper!) I have friends Carrie’s age who are actually successful actors/performers/writers in the city, and they don’t live like Carrie. Many have side hustles. Money is a constant concern.

And Carrie Bradshaw being forced out of Manhattan would have certainly resonated.

Zohran Mamdani's Dangerous Plot To Feed New Yorkers

---

---

People online have helpfully reminded me that And Just Like That … has provided explanations for Carrie’s wealth, as if I missed those obvious plot points: She’s a “best-selling author” (although a Gramercy Park townhouse is more “books about wizard school” money). Her husband (known as “Mr. Big” on the original series) left her a fortune when he died. I admit I do find it slightly discouraging that the series went with “Well, Carrie married the slightly creepy guy based on Donald Trump and lived happily ever after.”

A pleasant person online

I stress again for the second time that I realize Carrie Bradshaw is a fictional character. So, these are all choices that the show has made to keep her impossibly rich. They could have just as easily chosen to have her financier husband die broke. They could even dare to show an almost 60-year-old woman writer in New York living a comfortable, but hardly extravagant, life.

That suggestion pushed a lot of folks over the edge: This show is a comedy, they said, not a drama — as if a normal human existence is Greek tragedy. Our current reality is so dire, we need “fantasy.”

Playwright Kari Bentley-Quinn Explores How America Sucks At Grief

Apparently, poor people are just too damn depressing to watch. Even the middle class aren’t fit for streaming content. That’s an unfortunate view, I think, because there are far more story opportunities for people whose lives aren’t a fairy tale. Normal working-class people are also capable of joy. They might have to take the subway or wear shoes without proper names, but their lives aren’t constant drudgery. Wealth isn’t the only means of escapism.

New York City’s actual reality is rarely depicted on screen. On How I Met Your Mother, 20somethings Ted (Josh Radnor) and Marshall (Jason Segel) lived in an apartment a successful middle-aged law firm partner would have envied. When Lily (Alyson Hannigan) is broke and single, she lives in a dingy apartment and her neighbor is Lithuanian, because that’s what happens when you’re poor. You live hear ethnic people.

It’s easy to love any city where you can live in a $5 million townhouse. Most New Yorkers, though, love a city that doesn’t always love them back. It’s a mean hustle at times. The fantasy isn’t lessened if Carrie Bradshaw lived in a modest apartment in Astoria, Queens, like many talented writers. She is still able to walk around the city in those ridiculous heels.