“Lucy I’m home!!” I exclaimed—entering the lobby of the Lucy Desi Museum & Center for Comedy, a shrine to the comedic joys of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz—and nobody blinked. Must happen a dozen times a day. I’m one of the countless Americans raised on I Love Lucy reruns—but while I am well-versed on her Vitameatavegamin routine and have done my own imitation of the candy assembly line, I knew very little about the comedy genius herself—for instance, that she was raised here in Jamestown, NY—or that her Cuban-born husband and partner, Desi Arnaz, fled Cuba after Batista’s 1933 revolution.
Here, you can wander through a mockup, in full living color, of the famous apartment where Lucy and Desi shared many an adventure with their befuddled neighbors, Fred and Ethel.
There is also an annual Comedy Fest every summer that pulls in headliners like Jerry Seinfeld, Jay Leno and Lewis Black. A national comedy center, indeed!
