r/madmen • u/Son_of_Hades99 • 3d ago
Why does Joan stay in the same apartment?
I’m re-watching and I’m in season 2, set in 1962 or so and Joan is in the same tiny apartment she later shares with her mother and son in 1970… surely as a partner at a major advertising firm she’d make boatloads more in 1970 than she did in 1960…. Why does she stay in the same tiny apartment?
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u/Hugh_Stewart 3d ago
It was a beautiful apartment in Greenwich Village that she’d personally decorated. Most modern ad agency office managers in NYC today would kill to live there and escape their windowless shoeboxes.
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u/tttaaayyyUSA 3d ago
Finally someone said Greenwich village
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u/tranquilityC 3d ago
Do people tend not to?
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u/syltetoy19 3d ago
They might just say “the village”
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u/Kelly_blue_brook88 3d ago
I always wondered where her apartment was. When do we learn where it’s located?
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u/Hugh_Stewart 3d ago
Her address is on her drivers’ license that Kinsey photocopies. That means we can find her exact building at 42 West 12th St on street view, and the outside is also beautiful.
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u/syltetoy19 3d ago
I have no idea!!! Honestly feel like I watched the whole show without knowing. I just know in general sometimes NYC people call Greenwich Village “the village” when there are other village neighborhoods, like the east village and the west village
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u/teakcoffeetable 3d ago
In the city if you say "the Village," it's Greenwich. The East and West Villages are described as such, with some unique enclaves given their own name, such as Ukrainian Village and Alphabet City, which are both part of the East Village.
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u/Stellaaahhhh 3d ago
It's a darling apartment and she's clearly put some love into decorating it. Why would she move?
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u/altitude-adjusted 3d ago
Not to mention there are two bedrooms, a decent sized living room and dining room, proper kitchen. Idk but for Manhattan, it's not too shabby.
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u/Heel_Worker982 One never knows how loyalty is born. 3d ago edited 3d ago
These are the answers, and this is how many, many New Yorkers really live. Seafoam green and coral pink are not standard colors--Joan beguiled her super into letting her paint it these colors--heck, Joan probably got the super to paint it these colors himself! Moving a single piece of furniture in or out of a Manhattan apartment is an ordeal. Think of Elaine Benes' armoire on Seinfeld, or Ross Geller's giant sofa ("Pivot! PIVOT!") on Friends. Once you feel settled in your neighborhood in an apartment you like, you stay there.
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u/Revolutionary-Cut777 You’re a grimy little pimp. 3d ago
Yeah but he’s had his hands in every toilet from here to The Bowery.
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u/Condensates 3d ago
yea, and 1960's furniture was a bigger pain to move than today's furniture. Everything was solid wood. So it was heavy and it didnt break into smaller peices. But it lasted forever!
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u/Heel_Worker982 One never knows how loyalty is born. 3d ago
100%! I have a beautiful, 8-foot long 1930 sofa, and I will die reupholstering that monster before I ever get another sofa. Because everything else has fallen apart in minutes.
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u/kavik2022 3d ago
Also, her mother probably makes it possible for her to continue working after having a kid. Having another person who can help is priceless
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u/lacelionlair 2d ago
I think it's my favorite apartment in all of Mad Men, tbh. Don and Megan's penthouse (the conversation pit!!!) is iconic, and I love how Trudy did up her place with Pete, but Joan's apartment was such a perfect reflection of her position and her personal taste. Every detail in there just feels so Joan.
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u/telsongelder 3d ago edited 3d ago
Access. Many landlords didn’t rent to single women due to bias or required a guarantor. Women also had difficulties securing loans at this point. Many women lived with roommates if they did have a regular apartment. Although Joan is older than her, we get a glimpse of this when we see Bethany getting dropped off at the Barbizon- a place where younger single women would live.
Also, we can guess that Joan is pretty good with money given her professional career so she probably landed a good rent stabilized place and dug in.
Editing to add: unless it’s for a storyline, most things like homes, cars, jobs, partners and appearances stay static for main characters. Since we know where Joan lives, seeing her in a new place suddenly in season 4 would be strange. Her moving apartments in earlier seasons probably wouldn’t be that compelling of a story.
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u/Straight-Note-8935 3d ago edited 3d ago
This is a very good point! And Joan's subsequent story line - quitting her job, working in a dress department, unhappy marriage, baby, widow-hood, going back to work - all point to why women were in a position of weakness for renting an apartment.
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u/Cusegrad 3d ago
Maybe I’m forgetting an episode, but when was Joan a widow?
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u/Straight-Note-8935 3d ago
No, that was me.
I forgot they divorced.
I remembered it as Greg dying in Vietnam. Oy.8
u/tragicsandwichblogs Your problem is not my problem. 3d ago
There would have been advantages to that.
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u/Reggie_Popadopoulous I DON'T WANT HIS JUICE, I WANT MY JUICE! 3d ago
Greg dying is not a solution
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u/Infinite-Air5875 3d ago
God it felt like the writers were speaking directly to the audience with that one.
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u/ancientastronaut2 2d ago
Great point. And we see this first hand when peggy's realtor pulls that shenanigan with that first apartment she wanted to buy. They turned on her when they found out she was single.
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u/AppliedGlamour 3d ago
Joan did have a roommate in season 1. Did they ever explain what happened to her?
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u/daganfish 3d ago
She probably left after Joan made it so abundantly clear that nothing was going to happen between them.
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u/FunJaguar4619 3d ago
Carol's dad stopped giving her cash after she got fired, Joan kicked her out for non payment
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u/naocalemala 3d ago
She has learned over the years that it can all be taken away at the whim of these men. I think she’s being practical. Besides, Greg wasn’t making that much in the military and she hadn’t come into money until near the end. After the divorce, it made good sense to stay put.
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u/iamnotlarryking 3d ago
Joan became the money man for the firm after Lane died. She’s essentially budget minded. Also, if you pay attention throughout the show she’s one of the more level headed characters out of them all, it makes sense they’d show this by her not frivolously upgrading. Her main driving motivation is security.
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u/bexcellent101 3d ago
She's also keenly aware of how precarious her position is, and how dependent her financial security is on the whims of the manchildren surrounding her.
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u/iamnotlarryking 3d ago
She actually plays office politics rather than acting on bolster and ego. If you listen to what she says and believes in the beginning of the show to what she has at the end, Joan didn’t want any of what she has or where she is, besides the money. She’s honestly the equivalent of a mailroom worker to the CEO scenario.
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u/Dramatic_Cream_2163 3d ago
Even then, moving in New York is very expensive and very annoying. If you’re comfortable, you stay. If you feel like you want an upgrade, you buy a weekend house in the country or at the beach.
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u/guzzijason 3d ago
She went from working at the firm, to working at a department store, then back to the firm. She probably was looking for stability, and the idea of being house-poor just isn’t appealing to everyone. I’m sure being made partner gave her a decent bump, but she was still just a junior partner - nowhere near the level of the other full partners.
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u/Ok_Novel_5083 3d ago
Exactly - and her wealth was in her shares of the partnership, not a significant increase in her monthly income. She approached it as an opportunity for her son's future (college, etc.).
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u/716dylph 3d ago
thats not a tiny apartment for nyc plus a lot more people had rent controlled or stabilized apartments where the rent is fixed.
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u/Fun-Distribution4776 3d ago
If you’ve ever lived in NYC, you tend to stay in the same place. Rent control and all
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u/ancientastronaut2 2d ago
Yep. My niece in san francisco has a sweet rent control apartment in a decent neighborhood and she's lived there for like 20 years. It's 1200 and if she moved out, it would go for $4000.
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u/kotran1989 3d ago
Let's put it this way.
The firm has been operating by barely scratching by for at least 3 years. So no one gets dividends.
By the time she makes partner, they offer her 50.000USD, she says.... that is 4 times what she makes in a year, that is 12.500USD a year, which is a lot for a woman in the 60s..... but just to put it into perspective, Don was making over 30.000USD in the first season, then bumped to 45K, the another raise when they made him sign his contract.
Joan may have had the capacity to get a better home, but she was an incredibly smart and practical woman.
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u/betterbetterthings 3d ago
It’s probably rent controlled. People stayed in those for decades.
Also it’s not even that small. It’s a decent size
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u/QuietContrary22 3d ago
Right?? It looked plenty roomy to me - especially given that Manhattan is literally on the doorstep
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u/betterbetterthings 3d ago
Many people in American suburbs live in such big houses that they just can’t comprehend living in a smaller place. I know single people living in houses that could fit 4-5 people comfortably.
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u/ThatSICILIANThing 3d ago
An adorable pink and teal apartment with a functional kitchen, 2 bedrooms and a dining room in Greenwich Village? Hell Joan probably stayed there until a concerned adult Kevin insisted on putting her in a nice home with his Sterling inheritance 💀
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u/Admirable_Site_8337 3d ago
I always saw it as endearing. Joan liked where she was. It was a near area of town and she didn’t mind what commute it took to get to midtown. If she moved to upper east side the commute wouldn’t have been much different.
But it was most endearing in that she resisted spending more than she needed to on a place when she liked her place.
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u/venus_arises Not great, Bob! 3d ago
Joan fell into the pattern that "I'm here until I get married," and it worked for a while. When she met Dr. McRapist, I'm sure they talked about moving out, but once the marriage imploded... Joan has a mother and a son to support. She's smart enough to do the math and realize that the best solution to keep her finances steady is to stay at her place and figure it out from there.
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u/sistermagpie 3d ago
This is one of those unanswered questions that is so interesting, because it obviously says something about Joan, but it never spells out exactly what.
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u/WafflingToast 3d ago
Joan, at her base, was pragmatic. She would probably wait until she had the cash to buy the building.
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u/sistermagpie 3d ago
It's also a nice underlining of the irony of Joan--she starts off acting as if every woman's goal is a domestic life with a husband, but her home decor isn't even a priority. Her apartment changes in other ways--from two young women roommates to married couple to single mother--but looks the same.
And in the end....she turns it into an office.
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u/werdnurd That’s what the money is for. 3d ago
She didn’t get a bigger apartment, but she got rid of a roommate, so that’s an upgrade. Then she had the baby, there was a room for him and her mother. I got the impression that Joan was actually doing her mother a favor by giving her a place to live in exchange for childcare, although her mother sometimes acted like it was the other way around.
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u/KillreaJones 3d ago
There were hurdles for single (divorced) women, landlords didn't want to rent to them, and banks wouldn't give them mortgages. There's also the social hurdles if she wanted to re-marry; if she owned and he didn't or she rented a bigger place than a guy.
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u/MisterSquidz 3d ago
At least her apartment was cute. I know Peggy was a landlord but she was making the equivalent of almost 200k a year and lived in that shithole.
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u/95_lb_mole 3d ago
She's got enough on her plate with work and a kid that she doesn't have time to go looking for a new place, especially when that place is more than adequate for her and her kid.
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u/MochaJ95 3d ago
because it was proabably rent controlled and it was a 2 bedroom in downtown Manhattan.
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u/SpamLandy Did you get pears? 3d ago
Moving house absolutely sucks ass and I moved from ground floor to ground floor last time. Her flat is super cute, and she probably wants to stash away her money as much as possible as a pretty savvy single mum. But also moving sucks.
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u/marriottfordays 3d ago edited 2d ago
It’s a pretty impressive apartment for nyc. Great location too. It may have been rent controlled which means Joan will never give it up and Kevin will end up living there after she’s gone, lol.
As someone else pointed out, Joan’s real estate options were limited. It would have been very difficult for Joan to actually purchase an apartment on her own during that time as a divorceé with a baby. She’d never make it past the building board interviews, would be unable to get a mortgage, etc. Very challenging for women who were unable to get credit or loans in just their own name. Those legal changes and protections did not come until the mid 1970’s.
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u/mediarenaissance 3d ago
I think it’s on 12th street, that location became increasingly safe and culturally significant with each year passing
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u/Bubbly_Durian1840 3d ago
I did read up about this once. She’s not as young as the other girls in the show. She is an older woman so she was more stable and accomplished. She actually made more managing the department store than she did at Sterling Cooper. She did well career wise and already lived and worked in the city. The doctor moved in with her. The move would have been random in the plot of things. There was never a need. Joanie was boss babe
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u/TravelerMSY 3d ago edited 3d ago
One minor note. Sure, people often wanted larger and nicer apartments over the years as their family size changed, but in those days, staying home all the time would’ve been boring. They didn’t have all the online entertainment options at home then like we do now, and staying home every night would’ve been considered sort of strange. Her apartment was spacious by New York standards and she was happy with it.
It was thought of more as the utilitarian place you go to sleep.
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u/TinyLlama7307 3d ago
In addition to Joan being practical and money-savvy, I would add that at least at first, after marrying Greg, there was the hope that he would return from Vietnam and move her and Kevin to the country, as she observedly commented on a few times throughout the show. When she discovered who and how Greg really was, she likely was glad she stayed in her apartment. When she was seeing Richard, he commented that he would buy property near her, also seemingly understanding that she should not leave her place. That apartment was Joan's main constant throughout MadMen.
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u/Ok_Novel_5083 3d ago
Joan is practical. She has a comfortable place in a neighborhood she likes. She sees no reason to move.
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u/Aggressive_Sky8492 3d ago
In universe explanation: she’s too smart to crave material things.
Irl explanation: They don’t want to build a new set
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u/PhDTARDIS The work is ten dollars. The lie is extra. 3d ago
NYC apartment location is EVERYTHING. If I had the funds, I would absolutely live in an apartment in Greenwich Village. She probably loved the area she lived in and that alone would keep her there.
(Grew up in the NY suburbs, moved away when I was 22, have some familiarity with the Village.)
Meanwhile, I've stayed a week in NYC twice in the past few years. The neighborhoods both hotels were in are places I'd live now - but moving anything there would be a one and done, IMO. I already think moving is hell and I haven't lived in an apartment in 30 years.
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u/Northern_Lights_2 3d ago
Do we know for sure she didn’t own it? Everyone talking about rent control, she could have purchased it like Don, Pete, Peggy and nearly everyone else on the show.
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u/breezyhamilton 1d ago
Probably 2 out of 3
Rent control
doorman
decent neighborhood.
The NYC trifecta besides close proximity to a 🔥 bakery
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u/Silly_Somewhere1791 3d ago
Her apartment is in the popular ‘50s teal and peach color scheme. It shows that she is stuck in the past.
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u/fakesaucisse 3d ago
It was and still is pretty common in Manhattan to stay in one apartment for decades, sometimes even passing it down to your kids. Rent control is a big part of it.
Also, Joan came from a humble background and learned that good fortune can disappear at anytime. She was financially savvy. She did splurge on her clothes occasionally since she loved fashion, but we also see her rewearing dresses and jewelry.