On I Love Lucy Fred & Ethel (well Ethel really) Mertz owned an entire Manhattan apartment building, filled with middle-class tenants. At least until they all went to Europe they didn’t have a mortage (or they’d paid theirs off). Wouldn’t they have had even more money than the Ricardos? With Fred’s constant pennypinching and cutting corners with heat and building maintenance (not to mention doing all the work himself) they’d have a pretty huge nest egg in the bank. All Fred has to is die and Ethel’s a rich widow. Anybody else ever wonder about this?
Maybe the building was rent controlled and they didn’t get the market’s worth of the place…?
Yeah, I did wonder about this. Plus they appeared to have had a pretty successful vaudeville career, so they may have had some money saved up from that. I guess Fred just made them look middle class with his pennypinching…
I think Fred Mertzs’ being so cheap was part of his character, and thus even though they probably had more money than the Ricardos, Fred watched every cent. Then again, as old vaudeville performers, it would be in his character to worry about where the next dime was coming.
There were a few episodes where Ethel would lay down the line and insist Fred pay for, or buy something. He would moan and groan, but eventually pay up - in other words, it wasn’t for lack of money as much as Fred being a tightwad.
I would think there’d be a pretty big difference in the value of a New York apartment building in those days as compared to today, even allowing for inflation.
I think Fred Mertz would have been rich had he not bought an apartment building in the East River. (The fictional address, 623 East 68th Street, would place the building in the river.)
Even assuming the building is paid for it wouldn’t be pure profit: upkeep, taxes, utilities, insurance (a BIGGIE I would think- fire/burglary/liability/etc.) so it’s not all free and clear money. But yeah, they should be very comfortable. Maybe Fred had a smack habit and in fact wasn’t that much older than Ethel but just prematurely aged due to lifestyle.
You find out in the cross-country episode that Ethel was spoiled by her father (who couldn’t stand Fred) so may have been a bit on the spendthrift side. Fred probably knew he had to keep her in check and not let her know how much money they had.
HIJACK, but I always wondered about Ralph Kramden. I know bus drivers don’t get rich, but- especially then- would they really have to live in the slums with just a bunch of cheap second hand furniture?
But, isn’t there the notion that, the people who got rich, didn’t get rich by spending money?
There was an interview quite a few years ago with Audrey Meadows and she mentioned that the Kramden’s apartment was beyond bleak, and that they had lots of viewers sending them new curtains and tablecloths, etc. to “gussy up” the place.
And another hijack to the OP; I always thought it would be a cool idea to have a hotel in NYC where all of the rooms looked exactly like the Ricardo’s apartment - even down to the fact that everything (walls, furniture, curtains, etc.) would be in grays so it looked like a black and white set.
Ralph has nothing because he keeps spending any money they manage to save in pursuit of soem get-rich-quick scheme.
The Nortons have much better stuff (albeit much kitchier) because Ed and Trixie know how to manage thier finances.
Um, I didn’t think the Mertz’s owned the building, I thought they were just live in superintendents for the the owners. Don’t know why I thought this, honestly, I just did. Which would make them poorer than Rickie and Lucy. Free housing in exchange for super duties just implies, semi retired somehow, to me.
Yes. There a plenty of examples, including a few extreme ones, of people with lots of money in the bank who are consummate tightwads. Often their thriftiness was a major factor in building said bank account.
Eh. . . cite? Fred and Ethel were the landlords, but was it ever indicated that they owned the building? Possibly they just owned an extra apartment subleased to the Ricardos.
Hafta admit, though, I was never a fan or viewer of the program, so it’s possible they were mentioned as owning the building.
I thought the Mertz’s owned the building. In the last season when the Ricardos moved to a house in Connecticut, it took awhile before the Mertz’s moved there (also ran a chicken egg business with Ricky). Fred mentioned something about finally getting someone to take care of the building and going to New York occasionally to check on it.
The most logical answer is Fred was born in the 19th century and some of these people, especially from a working class background, really knew how to squeeze a nickel until the buffalo defecated and then sell that).
“I Love Lucy” was an adaption from the radio show Lucille Ball was on “My Favorite Husband”. In it, the best friends were her husband’s boss and wife (Played by Gale Gordon and Bea Bendaret whom Ball wanted as the Metrz’s but were not available). Was the Gale Gordon character portrayed as excessively stingy? Was that trait “borrowed” by Jack Benny’s character or did Frwley’s looks just suggest a tightwad?
They definitely own the building. Ethel notes that it is in here name and mortgages it to finance their trip to Europe.
If Fred were a real character he would have survived not only the pillar to post/hand to mouth days of Vaudeville and Burlesque but the Great Depression (which was going strong less than 20 years before the show began), which would also explain some of his stinginess.
Arthur Marx had a story in his 1954 book on his father “Life with Groucho” to show how stingy an even more successful vaudevillian could be. Unfortunately Google Books severely limits it (it’s on page 10) but essentially Groucho went to a tobacco store to buy some pipe tobacco. Parking meters were a penny for 12 minutes and a nickel for an hour. Unfortunately Groucho only had a nickel. Rather than just saying “WTF” and deposit a whole nickel for a 5 minute errand, he walked a block in a heatwave to get change, then after putting the penny in, walked another block to get his tobacco.
That’s a crazy way to make money. So crazy it might just work… C’mon Ethel, let’s get started before Ricky and Fred get suspicious!
Being a landlord–really a landlord and not just the manager–doesn’t make you rich necessarily. You can live in one of your units for $0 a month, but any actual money has to come from your tenants. If you need more money, you can raise your tenants’ rents, but there’s presumably a limit to how far you can go with that; even without rent control there’s bound to be a point where people start leaving and then you’re stuck with vacancies.
I’ve met grocery checkout clerks who were building owners; I imagine that sort of thing isn’t all that uncommon, especially for single-building owners.
Actually Ethel owned the building not Fred and Ethel. As was common back then and before, when a home was bought it was put in the wife’s name alone to give her some sort of “Security” over the husband just up and leaving.
It’s mentioned several times that the Mertz’s own the building, for instance when Ricky returns from Hollywood to get a new agent who describes the Ricardo’s building as not up to snuff. Ricky points out that the Mertz’s are not only their landlord but they OWN the building.
It’s also pointed out on several occasions that the building is mortgages and not paid off. For instance, when Fred lies to his old Vaudeville partner, saying he owns many buildings he comes clean and says “We only one one building, this building, and the bank owns most of it.”
The Ricados are a paying around $125.00/month depending on the episode for their flat, (the second one).
In one episode Fred says he spent all day collecting the rent (when he moved out to CT and comes back into NYC) and he has $500 in his wallet.
Since we know that there are at least six apartments in the building, if not more, the rent must’ve went down on the Ricardo’s apartment since they moved out. At one point during their European vacation, Fred tells Ricky he was charging them more than anyone else in the building, but then Ethel confesses she gave back the over charge to the Ricardos each month.
We can assume of the (at least) six apartments, that when the Mertzes moved to CT and Fred says Mrs Tumbull (Sp??) sister is going to move in an manage the building, that she gets her flat free.
So that leaves five flats at $100 a piece??
We know the Mertzes have a flat and the first flat the Ricardo’s have is directly above them. Then the Ricardos trade apartments with a lady who’s daughter moved out and got married. This now puts the Ricardos on the same floor as the Mertzes. In the “Superman” episode there is a vacant flat next to the Ricardos.
So this accounts for
Mertzes flat
Ricardos (2nd) flat
Vacant flat
The Next Floor Up
Ricardo’s first flat
It’s also mentioned the next door neighbors of the Ricardo’s first flat and Mrs Trumbull lives above the Ricardo’s first flat, as she’s pounding on her floor which is the Ricardo’s ceiling.
So that makes at least six flats in the building, probably more.
The radio show “My Favourite Husband” the best friends played by Gale Gordon andBea Benaderet were much better off than the Mertz’s. They were the President of a bank and the wife. Much in the way Mr Mooney was portrayed, but not tightfisted. The Lucy and Ricky characters, named Liz and George were not poor at all but middle classs. George was a vice president of the bank, but the money the Coopers (orginally the Cugats) had came and went depending on the plot of the radio show. Usually a shortage of money in the Cooper household was explained away by Liz buying too many clothes and such. Katie the maid, was Liz foil the first half season, much in the way Ethel was the foil, till the format changed and Gale Gordon and Bea Benaderet were brought on. They kept Katie the maid as an additonal foil for the Liz character. So the Coopers were better off than the Ricardos, (at least till after Ricky came back from Hollywood)
On “I Love Lucy,” after awhile, Ricky went from just performing at the Tropicana (didn’t he have a LONG engagement there) to actually buying the place and renaming it the Club Babaloo.
I think also on “I Love Lucy” the fact that Fred and Ethel were former vaudevillians was introduced during the first season as a plot device: an episode where Ricky needed two actors on stage and he used the Mertz’s. Also originally in the pilot the Ricardo’s were depicted as wealthier than they were when the show was picked up.