Visitors watch clips of Matthew Perry on the day after his death. Photo / Jeenah Moon, The New York Times
Visitors watch clips of Matthew Perry on the day after his death. Photo / Jeenah Moon, The New York Times
After the actor’s death, fans paid tribute at a storefront re-creation of the sitcom’s famous sets.
Every night, Marnie Stein, an elementary school principal from Montreal, falls asleep to the lullaby of Friends streaming on her TV.
At school, the decorations in the teachers lounge reference Central Perk, the Manhattancoffee shop where the show’s main characters held court. “All we do is quote Friends,” Stein said of her and her colleagues.
So, on Sunday afternoon, while on a trip to New York City with her daughter and best friend, Stein took a pilgrimage to a storefront at East 23rd Street and Lexington Avenue, where sets from the long-running sitcom have been re-created for fans in a two-floor tourist magnet that is part museum, part photo opportunity.
After the news Saturday night that Matthew Perry, one of the show’s lead actors, had died suddenly at his home in Los Angeles, the trip to the Friends Experience turned into a moment to pay tribute to the late 54-year-old star, who had been open about his long battle with drug and alcohol addiction.
“He was in pain and he had so many demons and he suffered for so long,” Stein said as Friends clips flashed on a screen behind her. “As I’m trying to come to terms with it, I hope he’s at peace.”
Stein, 49, watched Friends from its early days, when it premiered on NBC in the mid-1990s and quickly became a pop culture touchstone, with its portrait of a close-knit group of 20-somethings navigating friendship and relationships. The show has maintained its cultural cachet into the streaming era, producing a legion of Generation Z fans who are just as eager to take a photograph alongside a re-creation of the Friends fountain as their parents’ generation is. (Stein’s 22-year-old daughter, Maggie, is a fan, too.)
A sardonic jokester with a mysterious job and a sometimes painful awkwardness when flirting, Perry’s character, Chandler Bing, was a central pillar of the show during its 10-season run, and his relationship with Courteney Cox’s character, Monica Geller, is one of the most beloved romantic arcs in TV history.
A re-creation of the Friends Central Perk coffeehouse. Photo / Jeenah Moon, The New York Times
In his recent memoir, in which he chronicled his road toward sobriety, Perry described the show as a “safe place” and a “touchstone of calm” for him. “It had given me a reason to get out of bed every morning,” he wrote.
He also described the character as deeply personal to him. Chandler’s trademark way of talking — “Could she be more out of my league?” and “Could I be more sorry?” — came from a speech pattern he and his brothers took on in grade school.
“From the day we first heard him embody the role of Chandler Bing, there was no one else for us,” the show’s creators, Marta Kauffman and David Crane, and an executive producer, Kevin Bright, said in a statement Sunday.
There was a sense of shock among fans, who had seen the cast together as recently as 2021 when they got together for a much anticipated reunion special. To those who have watched and rewatched the 10 seasons, often streaming them in the background of daily life, the actors have become reliable companions.
“You know when you get that kind of sinking feeling?” said Olivia Freer, 28, a tourist from England who had bought tickets to the museum with her friends after learning the news. “I feel heartbroken. You don’t know them, so you don’t think it’ll affect you, but it does.”
Outfits worn by the cast of Friends. Photo / Jeenah Moon, The New York Times
The broad and enduring loyalty to the show has fuelled enough demand for Friends pop-up shrines not just in New York, where the show is set, but in Miami and Salt Lake City, as well as around the world in Melbourne, Australia; Dublin; and Amsterdam. Like many so-called immersive experiences, the event revolves around getting photos in the show’s trademark settings, including the orange couch at Central Perk and the blue cabinetry of Monica’s kitchen.
Fans can recline in a La-Z-Boy chair like the ones Chandler and his pal Joey were known to sit in, and pose as if trying to finagle a sofa up a staircase, as Chandler did with Rachel and Ross in Season 5. Glass cases display props and costumes from the series, including Chandler and Monica’s wedding invitation and vows, as well as the outfit Chandler wore in a Thanksgiving episode in Season 8 in which Brad Pitt guest-starred.
So, what is it about this show that turns props into precious memorabilia and faraway actors into what start to feel like cherished companions?
For Amy Taylor, who was travelling with Stein, it’s the sense of comfort and ease that episodes of Friends give her — it was a balm for her during the pandemic in particular, she said. And it’s the common language it provides her and her loved ones. (In a reference to a running joke in the series, Taylor has a chick tattooed on her leg, and her cousin has a duck tattoo.)
“I just hope he knew,” Taylor said of Perry, “that his character brought so much comfort to people.”
