8 ways New York City has changed since 'Girls' dominated TV
The girls are back!
We’re over the moon about the news that, a decade since that surprisingly lowkey series finale, Lena Dunham's Emmy-winning HBO comedy Girls is coming back for a limited-series revival.
Yes, the voice-of-a-generation series will officially return for five episodes on HBO and HBO Max, with executive producer Judd Apatow returning as well as the original cast, including Dunham as Hannah, Allison Williams as Marnie, Jemima Kirke as Jessa, Zosia Mamet as Shoshanna, Andrew Rannells as Elijah. (So far, there’s no word whether Adam Driver will return as Adam Sackler, but we’re highly skeptical he’d make an appearance given the whole hoopla over Dunham's 2026 memoir Famesick.) Production will reportedly begin in 2027, though no official release date has been announced just yet.
RECOMMENDED: HBO Max and Paramount+ will be combined into one streaming app
“We always said we would only return to GIRLS if there was a specific story we were burning to tell,” Lena Dunham said in the series announcement. “I've missed these characters, but for a long time I couldn’t quite picture them in the present day. Then, right around my fortieth birthday, they started talking to me in the shower. And, as you may remember, once this fivesome starts talking it’s pretty hard to get them to stop… It’s rare that you get the chance to return to something that changed your life with the gift of hindsight and a whole new level of gratitude and understanding. I love these girls (and boy), our friends at HBO, and all the people who have continued to discover the show and remind us afresh why we do this, which is the joy of being together… and the chance to wear yellow mesh…”
In the reboot, the core four will be entering their forties, so you can bet they’ve grown and changed, but they’ll still be the “girls” we know and love, assures Amy Gravitt, the executive vice president and head of HBO & HBO Max Comedy Programming.
Like Jessa, Marnie, Hannah and Shoshanna, New York City, too, has undergone some pretty foundational changes since the last episode of Girls aired. For starters…
1. Rents are much higher
Back inn 2017, the median rent was $2,695 per month. Now? It’s $3,707 per month, according to Realtor.com. That’s $1,000 more than it was 10 years ago. In fact, the average Manhattan apartment is now renting for $6,655 a month, a figure that would astound Hannah and Co., who would now be priced out of neighborhoods (Brooklyn Heights, Greenpoint, Chinatown) that they long called home.
2. Fewer places are open 24/7
Thanks to the pandemic and economic factors, many local businesses, diners and transit-adjacent spots never returned to full 24/7 operations after COVID-related closures. In fact, the 24-hour diner is a rarity these days, rather than the standard.
Kellogg’s Diner, where Hannah and Adam shared a heartbreaking realization (and where the “good soup” meme came from) is still around, thankfully, and serving up more of a Tex-Mex menu after it changed ownership in 2023.
3. We’re working from home more
Some of us have been working remotely since 2020. The pandemic showed employers and workers that an office is not necessary to get work done. Back in 2024, about 11-percent of New Yorkers reported they were still working remotely, but more and more, companies are requiring their staff to return to the office. It’s still not what it used to be in 2017, though, and some office spaces are still empty.
A new study finds that midtown could lead the country in converting unused office space into housing, with enough empty square footage to potentially yield 78,121 new apartments. And it's certainly possible that some of the Girls' girls would work from home in the reboot.
4. Influencers are the new hipster
TikTok, which took off in the U.S. in 2020, reshaped the social landscape in New York City. Influencers, who are for better or worse ubiquitous on city streets, now drive lines for viral items and experiences, and help mold IRL trends. They, like the once-maligned Williamsburg hipster, get plenty of eye rolls. If we'd had to wager which Girls characters would either be under the trance of influencers (if not an influencer themselves), it would be Marnie or Shoshanna.
5. The skyline has changed
The skyline looked very different even 10 years ago. With Hudson Yards opening in 2019, Little Island in 2021 and Billionaire’s Row taking shape along 57th Street and Central Park South across the last 10 years, the very visuals of New York is markedly different from Girls' heyday.
6. The MetroCard was phased out
OMNY is now the MTA’s card of choice. Now we tap in and out of the subway system, rather than swiping with the MetroCard. Some of us just used our credit card-enabled phones to pay. It’s much more high tech and standard than the MetroCard was, even though we miss it for nostalgic reasons.
7. Gowanus was rezoned
The toxic Gowanus Canal is now a water feature people actually want to live next to. When Girls was on from 2012 to 2017, the Brooklyn neighborhood was mostly an artist haven that hadn’t quite gentrified yet. But in 2021, the area was rezoned to allow 8,500 to 9,300 new residential units. Since then, there’s been an influx of luxury residential buildings cropping up, totally changing the neighborhood forever.
8. LaGuardia became NYC's best airport
In 2017, LaGuardia Airport ranked dead last in North America in J.D. Power’s North American Airport Satisfaction Study, scoring 654 out of 1,000 against a 749 national average. In other words, it was horrible to fly out of. That year, however, the FAA approved the East Side Reconfiguration, paving the way for the demolition of older terminals and the consolidation of Delta's operations, and construction on Terminal B kicked off. Now? It’s the best NYC-area airport, winning the 2025 Airport Service Quality Award for Best North American Airport Serving 25 Million to 40 Million Annual Passengers.
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