It was a heartfelt day on the set of Live with Kelly and Mark, as the beloved daytime show recorded its final episode at its longtime Upper West Side studio before relocating to a new home downtown. The last episode was recorded in the old studio on April 1.
For 37 years, 7 Lincoln Square — located at 67th Street and Columbus Avenue — served as the iconic backdrop for the show. Over the decades, it’s been home to a rotating cast of beloved hosts, beginning with Regis Philbin and Kathie Lee Gifford.
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Kelly Ripa joined the show in 2001 and has remained a constant presence through various co-host changes, including Michael Strahan and Ryan Seacrest following Philbin’s departure in 2011. She now shares hosting duties with her husband, Mark Consuelos, who officially joined the show in April 2023.
Although Consuelos is a more recent addition to the co-host lineup, the couple told PEOPLE that the studio holds deep sentimental value for them, marking the end of an era and the beginning of a new chapter.
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“Our kids grew up here,” Consuelos told PEOPLE. “They’d come visit mom here a lot — they were always backstage, even when they were babies.”
Ripa and Consuelos, both 54, are proud parents to three children: Michael, 27, Lola, 23, and Joaquin, 22.
“You have to remember, I had my kids back in a time when maternity leave was not really a thing; we didn’t really know how to negotiate that or navigate that,” she said. “But the good news is you could bring your kids to work with you. And because they’re very mindful of our hours here — as it is a live morning television show — I was able to be a full-time working woman and a full-time mother simultaneously, which is a very rare thing and not something I take for granted at all.”
The Live studio holds an even deeper significance for Ripa and Consuelos—it played a role in bringing them back together. In 1996, before they were married, the couple had broken up. Just days later, both were scheduled to appear on Live with Regis and Kathie Lee as surprise guests for a Mother’s Day segment honoring an All My Children fan.
Even though they each tried to back out, they both ended up on stage. That unexpected reunion made them realize they had made a mistake. The encounter rekindled their relationship, and the very next day, Consuelos proposed. They flew to Las Vegas and got married.
Live with Kelly and Mark is among the final ABC programs to transition to 7 Hudson Square, the Walt Disney Company’s newly established New York City headquarters per PEOPLE.
Known as The Robert A. Iger Building, the modern facility features several studios, with The View and The Tamron Hall Show already settled into their new spaces. ABC’s other major New York production, Good Morning America, is also slated to relocate there by year’s end.
