40 Fun Facts About Famous Addresses

In Finding Nemo, a diver's mask marked 42 Wallaby Way sends Marlin and Dory to which Australian city?

Sydney is where the dentist Philip Sherman keeps Nemo in a fish tank. Dory reads the address on the mask by the glow of an anglerfish that is hunting her and Marlin.

Which detective lodges at 221B Baker Street, a number that did not exist when the stories were published?

Sherlock Holmes received so much real mail that the Abbey National building society, whose premises later covered the site, employed a full-time secretary to answer it.

Which London address has a famous black front door that cannot be opened from the outside?

10 Downing Street always has someone inside to grant entry. Its bricks are really yellow: two centuries of pollution turned the house black.

Which Washington landmark at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue was rebuilt after British troops burned it in 1814?

The White House has been home to every US president since John Adams in 1800. The 1814 fire destroyed the interior and charred much of the exterior.

Which animated family lives at 742 Evergreen Terrace, a street named after the creator's childhood road in Portland?

The Simpsons were given several other house numbers in early seasons before 742 stuck. Matt Groening grew up on an Evergreen Terrace in Oregon.

Which New York skyscraper at 350 Fifth Avenue is so large that it was assigned its own ZIP code, 10118?

The Empire State Building got the code in 1980, when Manhattan rolled out 63 new postal codes. Tenants still enter through its Art Deco lobby on Fifth Avenue.

Which wealthy California city did a 1990s teen drama make famous through its ZIP code, 90210?

Beverly Hills has five ZIP codes, and 90210 is only one of them. The drama's high school was really filmed in Torrance, in the 90501 ZIP code.

Canada Post answers letters sent to the postal code H0H 0H0, which belongs to which famous figure?

Santa Claus got an official reply programme in 1983, after Montreal postal staff noticed in 1974 that his letters were being treated as undeliverable.

Which American public-service mascot received so many letters that he was given his own ZIP code, 20252?

Smokey Bear was getting more than 13,000 letters a week when the Postal Service gave him the code in 1964. It is still in use.

Which family raises Harry Potter at 4 Privet Drive in the fictional Surrey town of Little Whinging?

The Dursleys are Harry's aunt Petunia and uncle Vernon. Their house in the first film was a real one, at 12 Picket Post Close in Bracknell.

Which DC superhero's alter ego traditionally lives in Apartment 3D at 344 Clinton Street?

Superman's civilian flat is usually placed in midtown Metropolis, where Clark Kent writes for the Daily Planet. In the earliest stories his paper was The Daily Star.

Which sitcom household lives at 1313 Mockingbird Lane in the fictional city of Mockingbird Heights?

The Munsters are a Transylvanian-American family, and a 2012 reboot pilot was titled Mockingbird Lane after their address.

Which horror villain stalks the dreams of the teenagers at 1428 Elm Street in Springwood, Ohio?

Freddy Krueger is finally lured through a series of booby traps inside the house after Nancy Thompson drags him out of her nightmares.

Which American official's residence is Number One Observatory Circle, built in 1893 for an observatory superintendent?

The Vice President got the house in 1974, after the Navy's top admiral had liked it so much that he took it for himself in 1923.

Which rock guitarist lived at 23 Brook Street in Mayfair, next door to a house once rented by Handel?

Jimi Hendrix's neighbour across the centuries, Handel, rented number 25 from 1723 until his death there in 1759. One museum now covers both homes.

Which sitcom's lead lives in apartment 5A at 129 West 81st Street in New York City?

Seinfeld faked its New York exterior: the building shown as Jerry's home actually stands at 757 South New Hampshire Avenue in Los Angeles.

Which New York apartment building at 1 West 72nd Street was John Lennon's home on the Upper West Side?

The Dakota, completed in 1884, is the oldest remaining luxury apartment building in New York City. It was not even given its name until 1882.

Which TV drama follows the women of Wisteria Lane after a neighbour takes her own life in the pilot?

Desperate Housewives sets Wisteria Lane in the fictional town of Fairview, in the equally fictional Eagle State.

Which royal residence, whose East Front faces The Mall, has the London postcode SW1A 1AA?

Buckingham Palace holds the primary code of the SW1A district. Behind that postcode are 775 rooms and the largest private garden in London.

Which character leaves Harry Potter the house at 12 Grimmauld Place, later donated to the Order of the Phoenix?

Sirius Black was Harry's godfather, and the house had long been the London home of his family.

Which children's character do the Browns take home to 32 Windsor Gardens, a fictional address near Notting Hill?

Paddington Bear's street is fictitious: a real Windsor Gardens lies off Harrow Road nearby, but it does not resemble the road in the books.

Which magical nanny is blown by the east wind to the Banks household at 17 Cherry Tree Lane?

Mary Poppins arrives with her carpet bag after the children's previous nanny, Katie Nanna, storms out in a huff.

Which superhero team is based in a mansion at 1407 Graymalkin Lane in Westchester County, New York?

The X-Men train in a mansion that has belonged to Charles Xavier's family for ten generations and opened as Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters.

Which Marvel sorcerer's Sanctum Sanctorum is a three-story townhouse at 177A Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village?

Doctor Strange's address is a nod to a real apartment once shared by the Marvel writers Roy Thomas and Gary Friedrich.

Which Marvel hero grew up at 20 Ingram Street in Forest Hills, Queens?

Spider-Man's alter ego, Peter Parker, was taken in by May and Ben Parker after the death of his parents.

Which diarist hid from Nazi persecution in a secret annex behind Prinsengracht 263 in Amsterdam?

Anne Frank's father, Otto, had moved the spice and gelling companies he worked for into the canal house in 1940. The museum there opened in 1960.

Which thinker lived for 47 years at Berggasse 19 in Vienna, where a museum now marks his rooms?

Sigmund Freud took his famous couch along when he fled to London in 1938, so the Vienna museum has to do without it.

Which general's Apsley House was nicknamed Number One, London, as the first house past the Knightsbridge toll gates?

The Duke of Wellington bought the house from his cash-strapped elder brother in 1817, wanting a London base for his new career in politics.

Which James Joyce work gives Leopold Bloom a home at 7 Eccles Street, a Dublin house that stood empty in 1904?

Ulysses could borrow the address because the real house was unoccupied that year. It was demolished in 1967 and a private hospital now covers the site.

In which city does Graceland stand at 3764 Elvis Presley Boulevard, a segment of U.S. Route 51?

Memphis has welcomed visitors to the mansion since 1982, when it opened to the public as a house museum.

Which band named a 1969 album after the London street that is home to EMI's studios at number 3?

The Beatles made 3 Abbey Road so famous that EMI Studios took the album's name in the 1970s, and the zebra crossing outside is now Grade II listed.

Which record label turned a former photographers' studio at 2648 West Grand Boulevard into Hitsville U.S.A.?

Motown founder Berry Gordy bought the Detroit house in 1959 and used it as both the label's administrative building and its recording studio.

Eddy Grant's hit Electric Avenue is named after a market street in which south London district?

Brixton's Electric Avenue was the first market street to be lit by electricity, and the song refers to the 1981 riot in the area.

Which Chicago sports venue at 1060 West Addison Street does Elwood give as his home address in The Blues Brothers?

Wrigley Field is best known for the ivy on its outfield walls, which Bill Veeck planted in 1937.

Which New York arena at 4 Pennsylvania Plaza sits atop a railway station whose original building was torn down for it?

Madison Square Garden was one of the first venues of its kind to be built above the platforms of an active railroad station.

Which American writer hosted Picasso and Hemingway at her Saturday evening salons at 27 rue de Fleurus in Paris?

Gertrude Stein shared the Left Bank flat with Alice B. Toklas and hung it with works by Cézanne and Matisse that she and her brother Leo had bought.

Which TV network keeps headquarters and New York studios at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, once called the RCA Building?

NBC's home is nicknamed 30 Rock, which inspired the sitcom of the same name, and it also holds the Rainbow Room restaurant.

Which tech company's campus at 1 Infinite Loop in Cupertino sits on a street named after a programming concept?

Apple numbered each building with a single digit along the private U-shaped street, and employees call them IL1 to IL6.

Which action film cast the unfinished Los Angeles tower at 2121 Avenue of the Stars as Nakatomi Plaza?

Die Hard's tower later housed Ronald Reagan, who worked from its 34th floor for several years after leaving the presidency.

Which animated sitcom clan lives at 31 Spooner Street in Quahog, a town modelled on Cranston, Rhode Island?

The Griffins of Family Guy have a real-world twin for their address: an actual 31 Spooner Street lies in Providence, just west of Roger Williams Park.