Where in New York Is Planet Express from 'Futurama'?

The Planet Express spaceship from the Fox series Futurama

New York City has been destroyed and rebuilt so many times in "The Simpsons'" sister sci-fi show "Futurama." But there is one constant in the animated version of the Big Apple, and that is the interstellar courier service Planet Express.

It has become something of a sport for "Futurama's" Gothamite fans to look for the real-world equivalent of the Planet Express headquarters—not to be confused with an existing package forwarding company of the same name based out of Carson, California. If our calculations are as infallible as Professor Farnsworth, Planet Express should be located at West 57th Street in the 21st century. 

Carnegie Hall between West 56th and 57th Streets would have been neighbors with Planet Express. Photo via TROMDOC

It was actually "Futurama" executive producer and head writer David X. Cohen who said that. He brought up the famed Diamond District thoroughfare in the show commentary, countering John DiMaggio's (Bender) suggestion that Planet Express would have been by the 59th Street bridge in Queens. 

Cohen's words don't settle the debate easily though. The show suggests other conflicting whereabouts for Planet Express in Manhattan: In the episode "Viva Mars Vegas," the building is supposed to be along 72nd Street while in "The Inhuman Torch," it is in Battery Park City or somewhere close to Nelson Rockefeller Park.

But Planet Express bears the closest resemblance to a structure outside the US,  and it's not even from this century. Although the show's creators have not really admitted it, the Cointe Observatory (Observatoire de Cointe) in Liege, Belgium somewhat passes for the animated red building. If it were built in 1881, that is. 

Built by the University of Liège in the early 1880s, the Cointe Observatory in Belgium (image above via Xofc) looks like a medieval revival version of the Planet Express headquarters in 'Futurama' (below)

Who's to say the observatory won't last until the year 2880? By then, present-day New York will have been dead and buried under New New York and crawling with crocodiles and guitar-playing mutants.