Riverdale: Where Is Archie's Hometown Actually Located?
by Brandon ZacharyLong before the CW show that borrowed its name, Archie's Riverdale was one of the most consistent locations in American comics, appearing for decades as the home to Archie Andrews, Jughead Jones, Betty Cooper, Veronica Lodge and the rest of their gang of their Archie Comics friends.
However, much like The Simpsons' Springfield, the actual location of the town is still something of a mystery. Now, we're going to take a closer look at Archie Comics lore to try and figure out where Riverdale is actually located, both in comics and on the small screen.
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WELCOME TO RIVERDALE
Riverdale is the primary location used in most stories from Archie Comics. The classic series center around Archie Andrews and his friends. It's treated as a medium-sized town, usually held up as a suburb of a larger unnamed city. It features a mix of classic businesses (like Pop's Soda Shop) and basic structures (public high schools and a local mall) as well as more upper-crust spots like the mansions that belong to the Lodge and Blossom families on the edge of the property.
Like The Simpsons (another long-running series about living in America in a town), the various stories and spots in the town have included beaches, rivers, forests, woods, plains, farmland, mountains and deserts - all within the same area as the main town. It is typically portrayed as neighboring the other towns of Greendale (home of Sabrina the Teenage Witch) and Midvale (home to Josie and the Pussycats). It's big enough to be home to multiple high schools, including the prestigious Pembrooke Academy.
WHERE IS THE TOWN?
Over the better part of the last eight decades, several locations have been identified as the potential home of Riverdale. One Archie editor even suggested that Riverdale doesn't actually have a set location and that it's more of a "state of mind" than anything specific. However, various stories have suggested that the town is located everywhere from Iowa and California. It's even been suggested that all the beaches aren't actually on a seashore and instead actually just one of the beaches surrounding the Great Lakes in Illinois, but it's also been suggested that it's largely based on Archie creator Bob Montana's hometown of Haverhill, Massachusetts.
But the earliest idea for the location comes from a story published in 1942 by Archie Montana, it's suggested that the students of Riverdale High take a river trip up the Hudson River towards Bear Mountain. Hudson River and Bear Mountain are both prominent locations in New York State. They even go there on a ship called the "Peter Stuyvesant," which is named after a famous figure from the history of New York City. There's also an actual neighborhood in NYC called Riverdale near the Bronx Zoo, which has been a location in some stories. While it's been shown in many locations, New York tends to be seen as the most common location for Riverdale.
CW'S RIVERDALE
The Riverdale seen in the CW series Riverdale seems to push the town further away from New York City, but also seems to still be located in the same state. The town is set in a singular location and treated as a town more than a suburb. One section of town is shown to be a considerably worse part of town, largely full of mobile homes and the Southside Serpents gang. It's rougher around the edges than most other versions of the town that have been shown over the years.
With the Blossoms having used their Mapel Syrup empire to increase their wealth thanks in part to their participation in the drug trade, the show must take place somewhere in New England - the only natural place to find maple syrup in the United States. However, there are a number of subtle clues that the show still takes place in New York state.
Riverdale is mentioned to be a part of Rockland County, and there's only one county with that name in America, and it's located to the west of the Hudson River. Jughead can be seen boarding a bus heading for Mamaroneck in the first season, which is located in Westchester County. New York is even shown to be where Veronica made high-society friends before moving to Riverdale in this continuity.
Although there are still some logical problems - like Montreal being seemingly nearby - there are still more clues that the CW's Riverdale is a New York town than not.
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