Don and Betty are in Ossining, NY. Peggy is in Brooklyn.

The Drapers live in Ossining, NY, northern Westchester County. It's where "Sing-Sing" prison is. Peggy lives in Brooklyn. I think Peggy's mother and sister are very good representatives of the outer boroughs of New York at that time; the accents, demeanor, etc. Peggy has probably weaned herself out of her Brooklynese accent on purpose. She did go to some secretarial school -- maybe they gave courses on speech and diction.

The other characters are mostly non-New Yorkers. Don grew up in Pennsylvania, Betty's from Upper Merion, PA on the Main Line. Roger is a native New Yorker, but having grown up in Manhattan, would not have a "New York" accent. Pete, too, grew up in the "Silk Stocking" neighborhood of The Upper East Side. Those guys were prep-school educated and accent-free.

Joan could be from another part of the country as could the other secondary characters.

I just love finding out about everybody's backstory.

A friend told me that Don & Betty live in Ossinging New York and I didn't believe her. Ossining is a pretty tacky place and the home of Sing Sing prison. Why would an up and coming executive live in such an unstylish place? Croton-on-the-Hudson or Tarreytown OK but I just don't get Ossining at all.

A friend told me that Don & Betty live in Ossining New York and I didn't believe her. Ossining is a pretty working class place and the home of Sing Sing prison. Why would an up and coming executive live in such an unstylish place? Croton-on-the-Hudson or Tarreytown OK but I just don't get Ossining at all. What am I missing??

I am wondering if Ossining is where they moved first and then moved somewhere else...

First of all, the town of Ossining is not exactly a nice town--it's where Sing Sing is and so it's not exactly a bucolic place (though it is right on the Hudson, the constant influx of prisoners/visitors/corrections officers doesn't exactly make it Greenwich.

I would have thought that's the first suburb they could afford, but now they far more likely be in nicer towns in Westchester, like Larchmont or in Connecticut.

I'm not familiar with Ossining, but I'm told that there are some pretty nice parts to it. It's still Northern Westchester County which is very nice, has excellent school systems, etc. The Drapers probably couldn't have afforded Greenwich or Scarsdale when they first got married, so they settled for Ossining. Hey, their house doesn't look half-bad, does it?

We haven't been given any indication that they've moved yet.

I agree with both Gail and Betty but I'm pretty familiar with Ossining as it has been over the past twenty years. Odd choice for a first residence even if Don was not making a lot of money when they first moved there. Larchmont would be prefect as a prelude to Darien or Greenwich. (didn't the Upson's of Auntie Mame fame..a bit earlier in time...live in Darien?)
Don is the Creative Director of a sizeable agency, I believe. How much is he earning in 1962 dollars? $20,000 or more? I remember a guy in my college class in 1962 bragging that his father made $35,000 which would be like $200,000 today.

Season 1 showed us they live on Bullet Park Drive, Ossining. Their address was on the phone bill that Betty snuck from Don's den, to see who he was calling in the city from home.

Another episode in Season 1 (1960) mentions him making about $45,000.

$45,000 in 1960 is worth more than $325,000 in today's money and real estate has increased in value faster than inflation. So the Drapers could afford to live in a better place than Ossining on an income of $45,000. You could have purchased a decent, if unexceptional, house in Scarsdale for $35,000 at the time. On the other hand, their kitchen with fuitwood French provincial touches is perfect for the era. Did they have colored telephones like the green one next to the bed in episode 4? The Princess phone, which theirs was not, came a bit later I think. Colored phones were big in the early 70s but I'm not sure if you could have had a forest green phone in 1962. However, their decor has a William Pahlman /Lord & Taylor flavor which is pretty accurate.

The $45,000 figure came up in the episode where Don's made a partner in Sterling Cooper, so he hasn't been making that all along. There's a lot we don't know about Don's history. It's a nice house, and they look very settled in, so the implication is that they've been there a while.

I remember colored Princess phones pretty early in the 60's. A friend's parents had one next to their bed - pink - and it was probably '62 or '63.

My mother worked for the phone company during the early 60's (well, actually from the 30s to the early 70s), and we got free phone service, so we had more phones in our house than most people and we got all the latest models when they first came out. By the early 60s all of our phones were in colors (including a nice aqua one) because Mom was very particular about them matching the colors in each room. For my 16th birthday (November of '62) she got me my own princess phone, and I think she had her own princess phone before that.

ardilla - you were the kind of girl that I wished I was. I loved those phones - like something Barbie would have. The only problem with them was that they were very light weight and moved around when you dialed.

I really enjoyed watching Sally this episode. I'm guessing she's 6 or 7? So was I then. That's one of the many reasons why I'm so hooked on this show. They've gotten so many little things right.

Whatever Ossining is like today, what was it like in 1959-63? Nicer?

I think that Don and Betty live in Poughkeepsie.
In Season 1 Don is reading the paper, I think on Mothers Day when taking breakfast up and the headline is the Poughkeepsie Journal I believe.

They live in Ossining - there's an episode in Season 1 where Betty takes the phone bill with their address on it - Bullet Park Drive, Ossining. The inside joke is that John Cheever, the chronicler of fictional NY suburbanites in the 50's, lived in Ossining, and wrote a novel called Bullet Park. Also, when Don takes the train, his stop is Ossining.

Ossining is in Northern Westchester County, not far from Poughkeepsie. The Poughkeepsie newspaper was probably their local paper. Don probably also reads The NY Times, Advertising Age, and maybe The Wall Street Journal.

Maybe Don and Betty will upgrade to Princeton, and Don will ride the train into the city. Yes, Peggy is definitely Brooklyn, with dreams of the upper Westside in her ambitious little mind.

I live on The Upper West Side! I'll take that as a compliment.

I watched the episode again and Peggy says she is going to catch the BMT train at 4th Street. That means that Anita lives in or within easy walking distance of Bay Ridge.
However, Anita's mother does not live in the same building because when she was talking to Peggy she said she was leaving and put on a coat. Where does Anita and Peggy's mother live? Somewhere in Brooklyn, we assume.
What about Peggy. A friend thought she might live in Queens but couldn't recall what she told the guy with whom she went out on a date. When she bragged that she worked in Manhattan, he called her on it and said well you still live xxxx. Probably Brooklyn.
Great catch on the Ossining in-joke.
Also it was perfect when the priest could not stay to eat with them that one of the women said "I'll fix you a paper plate." Lolol.

Ossining and Westchester County, home of the Drapers, were very different from today. Westchester had not many Jews then. African-Americans were the unskilled and servant class. The tradespeople were largely Irish or Italian. The county was dominated by country club Republicans.

The writers chose Ossining because that was the home of John Cheever, America's chronicler of upper-middle class WASP suburbia. Bullet Park Drive is taken a Cheever novel "Bullet Park."

If you were part of the Westchester suburban scene back then, you can well identify with the depiction of the Draper household and environs, which are shown through a John Cheever lens.

I was impressed that in episode 1 that Paul lives in Montclair. At least somebody's from Jersey, I noticed his African-American girlfriend works in a Food Fair in West Orange.
Paul must be quite the hipster since Montclair was a bit bohemian even in those days. And Montclair State was just a teachers' college back then. (Now it's kind of a Public Ivy)
Food Fair! That's a blast from the sixties in Sopranoland.

I knew the Drapers lived in Ossining NY, but I didn't know their street is Bullet Park Drive. Now all I can think of is Betty shooting at the guy next door's homing pigeons while living on Bullet Park Drive...coincidence, or another subtle joke from the writers? Hmmmm

Hi Blackhat35! I hope the story lines will involve more of the Paul/Sheila relationship, the social difficulties of the time, and how Paul and Sheila will deal with them as the world changes around them.

Ballrow, great reference to Cheever...I'm sure most of us wouldn't have gotten that...(it could have been Updie-ish too, but you nailed it!)

To deconstruct further what some of the others commented on...that Ossining is where Sing Sing is...perhaps the writers are alluding to the Drapers life/marriage as being penned-in, confined, airless...jailed....(too much of a stretch??)

(oops...typo...meant to write Updike-ish)

katie - that's what's I find fun about watching the shows - every reference is loaded with potential meaning or clues, or maybe not. Sometimes a banana is just a banana, but I assume that everything on screen is put there for reason. When the writers show something or refer to something from that time, I look it up. It's fun, and I've learned a lot that I sort of knew but have forgotten, or should know. I think the writers are having a blast, too.