Gridskipper

The Sterling Cooper advertising agency is the setting for most of the action on Mad Men. Though its specific location isn't identified (it's on the 23rd floor of its building), I'll place it at the contemporaneous… Madison Avenue headquarters for the real-life Young & Rubicam agency. [link]

Who's to say exactly where Midge's post-beatnik pre-hippie love nest is, though its Village locale seems indisputable. Don drops by regularly for illicit nookie and licit inspiration. [link]

Rachel Menken serves as a business prospect and lust object for Don Draper as she tries to rejuvenate her family's flagging department store business. She's also Jewish. Menken's could be based on any of several… legendary New York stores owned by Jews, but we'll call it Henri Bendel, which had its flagship at this address until 1990. Bendel's was focused primarily on women's goods at the time, while Menken's has home furnshings as well. But the slight parallels between Rachel and Bendel's groundbreaking female exec Geraldine Stutz are pleasing enough to make the connection. [link]

The Drapers' charming suburban abode in Westchester, complete with scheming housewives and domesticated sexuality. [link]

The fictional flophouse hotel on Times Square where Don's estranged brother Adam is living, and where Don attempts to pay him off to go away. [link]

Don meets his brother Adam covertly at the D-Lite coffee shop "three blocks west" of Sterling Cooper. Could be any generic New York coffee diner, though there is a D-Lite donut shop still extant in a couple locations… outside Manhattan. [link]

"Fifteen hundred square feet, two nice bedrooms — I don't know if that includes that maid's room?" chirps Trudy. "It's on the market for thirty-two, but Elaine, the realtor, says we can get it for thirty."… Unlikely to find anything similar in the vicinity for under a million these days. Pete's dour father isn't impressed: "You sure you want to be that far uptown? It falls off after 79th." Pete's mother corrects him, "No darling, they fall off after 86th." [link]

Don Draper and Rachel Menken have their first tête-à-tête at a lounge with distinctive zebra-print wallpaper. This almost has to be a visual mini-tribute to the zebra-print banquettes at the legendary El Morocco.… The Citigroup Center stands at this address today. [link]

After they've resigned to keep things platonic, Don inveigles Rachel to meet him and discuss how Jews feel about Israel for a potential tourism ad campaign. One tipster believes they're meant to be in the restaurant… of the Pierre Hotel, now the Taj Pierre. [link]

Midge's sex-buddy Roy invites her and Don to go see their pal Ian play at the Gaslight and "support him and pass the basket." The Gaslight was a real place, opened in 1958 by John Mitchell and popular with Bob Dylan,… Allen Ginsberg, and other luminaries of the era. [link]

The haplessly emasculated Pete Campbell goes to Bloomingdale's to return a duplicate wedding gift (a "chip 'n' dip"). [link]

Salvatore Romano, the closeted gay blade of Sterling Cooper, meets a sexually predatory representative of the Belle Jolie lipstick company for a drink and dinner at the Roosevelt. Salvatore ultimately chickens out,… despite some very smooth patter and reassurances from the cosmetics fellow. [link]

When her ad copy gets accepted, Peggy Olson and the girls (and most of the boys) go to PJ Clarke's to celebrate. Jukebox dancing ensues, a phenomenon largely unobserved at the restaurant these days. [link]

Don Draper is accosted by a headhunting business rival while waiting at intermission during a showing of Fiorello!, a drama about the life New York mayor… Fiorello LaGuardia. Fiorello! opened at the Broadhurst in 1959 and ran for 795 performances. [link]