(New York) Matthew Perry, aka “Chandler”, was also a bit of a friend: fans flocked to the corner of two streets in the West Village in New York on Sunday, in front of the “building” from the series Friendsto pay tribute to the actor who died “too early”, at 54 years old.
In this chic, trendy and tourist district of Manhattan, the building, typical of New York with its small brick facades where the mesh fire escapes hang, is already usually a place of pilgrimage for fans of the series -cult comedy from the 1990s and 2000s that has spanned generations.
On Sunday, bouquets of flowers and hand-written letters pile up on the sidewalk, at the foot of the six-story building, animated on the ground floor by a restaurant. Under a light rain, we stop for a few minutes to reflect and pay tribute to the man who played “Chandler”, an endearing character of a joker with caustic humor and an adult who has a little trouble growing up.
“Matthew Perry, I grew up watching him in Friends, my parents also watched the series. He really had a role in my life and made me laugh so much,” says Taylor Lanthier, a 26-year-old law student in Vancouver, Canada. Passing through the Big Apple, she came to leave a yellow rose and echoed this little note placed on the ground by another hand: “thank you for all the bursts of laughter”.
“Comforting” series
One word keeps coming back: Friendssometimes criticized for the sanitized and undiversified universe in which its six characters of young working New Yorkers evolve, is a “comforting” series.
“It’s just a light series,” summarizes Eva, a 16-year-old high school student who lives in the neighboring district of Soho. “Something I watch when I’m sad, or if I want to have a good laugh,” she adds.
And even if the episodes were filmed in a studio in California, the building at 90 Bedford Street, where the apartment where “Monica”, “Chandler”, “Phoebe” and the others are supposed to be located, makes it a iconic story of New York. Just like “Central Perk”, the café where the six friends meet.
“I’m sure you can find people who moved to New York because of Friendsjust for the “adventurous” and romantic side of a single life in your 20s in New York,” says Chris Triebel, a guide who leads tours focused on TV shows and movies in the city.
With his group, the stop in front of the Friends building was planned for Sunday, but the death of Matthew Perry at 54, after a life punctuated by years of dependence on medication and drugs that he had described in a book, made him gives a feeling of waste.
“He’s really leaving too soon. […] He wrote brilliantly, he was a very funny actor, he could still have done a lot of things,” he regrets.