Where Is Riverdale?

[Razor]

Okay, where is this damn fictional city located? Where do Jughead and co. reside? My guess is New Jersey near the ocean, and apologies ahead if this has been covered on here already. Also no. I never Googled it. How big is Riverdale anyways? What is it's walkability score, it's demographics, and how many supertalls (if any)?

[muertecaza]

Originally Posted by Razor

Okay, where is this damn fictional city located? Where do Jughead and co. reside? My guess is New Jersey near the ocean, and apologies ahead if this has been covered on here already.

Hard hitting questions here, haha. Per Wikipedia:

Riverdale is the setting of the stories in the Archie Comics universe. It is usually depicted as a medium-sized town (possibly a suburb of a bigger city), with all the usual amenities of shopping malls, restaurants, and parks. In the first Archie stories in the 1940s, it was identified as Riverdale, New York, a real town just north of the Bronx. In Jackpot Comics #5 (Spring 1942), a story written by Montana has the gang going on a river trip. One panel says "...the good ship 'Peter Stuyvesant' settles into the Hudson, as Riverdale High clambers aboard for a happy trip to Bear Mountain."

Later the geography became more vague, with the climate and appearance varying from story to story. Riverdale has been shown to have beaches, lakes, rivers, deserts, farmland, woodland, mountains, plains, a transit system (as noted in the Josie and the Pussycats film) and four distinct seasons with changes in climate.

Archie Comics publisher John L. Goldwater and initial Archie artist Bob Montana differed on the inspiration for Riverdale, with Goldwater saying it was based on his hometown of Hiawatha, Kansas, and Montana saying the town's high school was based on his own in Haverhill, Massachusetts, where as in the comics a replica of Auguste Rodin's famous statue The Thinker stands.[1]

In one issue[volume & issue needed] of Archie and Jughead Digest, when one of the readers asked in a letter, "Where is Riverdale located?", the editor replied, "Riverdale is more of a state of mind than an actual physical location. It could be anywhere that kind people live and just have fun, like Archie and his friends. It could be in the Midwest, or along the Eastern Seaboard, or even a town in Canada, Mexico, or England."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riverdale_(Archie_Comics)

In addition to this, the TV show is filmed in Vancouver.

[pj3000]

Always just assumed it was Riverdale in the Bronx... never really thought twice about it.

[softee]

I remember Riverdale being depicted mostly as smaller city that was nearby a much larger city called Central City. In my mind I always imagined it being somewhere in the Northeastern U.S along the coast.

[jd3189]

I thought it was in the West Coast. Archie looked too posh to be out East.

[Obadno]

Northern New Jersy, Far suburb of NYC

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riverdale,_New_Jersey

[Sun Belt]

River:
"A large natural stream of water emptying into an ocean, lake, or other body of water and usually fed along its course by converging tributaries".

Dale:
"a valley, especially a broad valley"

So any establishment alongside a river bed in a broad valley?

[CaliNative]

No, not Illinois. Homer's Springfield has mountains and nuclear cooling towers not far from town.

I think of Riverdale as a town on a medium sized or large river, maybe the Ohio or Hudson or Connecticut or Delaware. Definitely northeastern or midwestern town--NOT the west. They do get cold weather there since they have heavy clothes in winter. Not deep south. Confession--I always liked Veronica more than Betty.

[Crawford]

I always thought Riverdale was like coastal Orange County or something in the 50's. Haven't looked at the comics in decades, but weren't they always going to the beach and playing volleyball/water polo? And weren't there always mountains in the background?

Riverdale was probably chosen because it sounds generic/anywhere, or maybe because authors had some connection to Riverdale in Bronx (which wouldn't remotely resemble the comics, but would be very likely to have people in publishing; it's an upscale, Jewish longstanding establishment neighborhood that kinda has that NW DC look of estates and apartment buildings on a hilly, wooded landscape).

[jd3189]

^^^ That's what I'm saying. Riverdale in the Archie comics seems similar to the place where the Scooby Doo Mystery Gang and Dr. Scrooge McDuck and his nephews lived, which reminds me of either some old Victorian area in Sacramento or somewhere in Northern California or a similar place down in Socal. I barely got the feeling that these cartoon characters were East Coast unless they are from parts of the East Coast I never been to.



As for the Simpsons, Springfield is probably in Colorado or Kansas. It's literally middle America.


And what about Gotham and Metropolis in DC comics? Or even Bikini Bottom?

[llamaorama]

Springfield is modeled on Portland(Oregon) the creators’ hometown.

[Razor]

Originally Posted by jd3189

^^^ That's what I'm saying. Riverdale in the Archie comics seems similar to the place where the Scooby Doo Mystery Gang and Dr. Scrooge McDuck and his nephews lived, which reminds me of either some old Victorian area in Sacramento or somewhere in Northern California or a similar place down in Socal. I barely got the feeling that these cartoon characters were East Coast unless they are from parts of the East Coast I never been to.

Riverdale has 4 distinct seasons..Also, the fact that the big fellow was nicknamed "Moose" leads me to believe that they live more north..That's just a hunch though..

[dubu]

in the river?

[Razor]

Originally Posted by jd3189

And what about Gotham and Metropolis in DC comics? Or even Bikini Bottom?

Gotham has to be NYC..It could be Chicago though.It's modelled after an American city that was a large metropolis when that comic was created..

[Innsertnamehere]

My understanding was that Gotham was a fictional city sort of between Chicago and New York. That was the impression I got for the Christopher Nolan Batman movies at least.

[hauntedheadnc]

Originally Posted by jd3189

And what about Gotham and Metropolis in DC comics? Or even Bikini Bottom?

Gotham is supposed to be located in southern New Jersey, while Metropolis is located across the Delaware Bay from it in Delaware.

[JMKeynes]

Riverdale is a section of the Bronx. It has some gorgeous old houses in the Fieldstone section.

[cannedairspray]

Originally Posted by hauntedheadnc

Gotham is supposed to be located in southern New Jersey, while Metropolis is located across the Delaware Bay from it in Delaware.

This is the real answer, but thematically it's always New York.

[Steely Dan]

There's a riverdale on the far southside of chicago.

But I don't think it's the one from Archie.

It's like 80% public housing projects.

And a giant sewage treatment plant.

[Sun Belt]

Gotham was always N.Y. for me.