76-Second Travel Show: "Goes to Sesame Street"

Episode #012

F E A T U R I N G * 3 7 * B O N U S * S E C O N D S

My first look at New York City wasn't from cop movies, Broadway musicals or covers of The New Yorker -- Sports Illustrated is more the norm in Oklahoma -- but of Sesame Street. I was intrigued by its urban space, with things like brownstones, stoops, a mix of diverse people, green monsters, corner shops.

I showered my mom with eager questions about a new world that seemed both inviting and foreign:

• 'Mom, why do people do their laundry in shops?'
• 'Mom, does Tulsa have an Uptown too?'
• 'Mom, why doesn't Bert have two eyebrows?'

Sesame Street -- which is filmed at the Kaufman Astoria Studios in Queens -- turned 40 a few weeks ago, and I got the chance to visit, see a segment on 'dirt' be filmed, and ask executive producer Carol-Lynn Parente, who's been there 22 years (and is still 'the new guy') where all the sets were inspired by -- a mix of neighborhoods from the Upper West Side, the Lower East Side and the Bronx. She told me she finds things walking around the streets that seem right off the set. Me too.

If you're on the Sesame Trail, here's a list of a few places to visit around the Big Apple.