See Good Morning America’s New Studio: Inside the Anchors’ Swanky Digs After 26 Years in Times Square
Roberts had a full-circle moment in the brand-new studio with GMA veteran Diane Sawyer.
Roberts and her co-hosts were joined by Diane Sawyer, who introduced her sit-down interview with Eric Dane, who revealed his ALS diagnosis to PEOPLE in April.
It was a poignant moment for Roberts, who said to Sawyer, “Thelma and Louise ride again.” The pair co-hosted GMA from 2005 to 2009 and were together when the show’s Times Square studio was unveiled in 1999.
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Spencer and Champion then arrived at last to the new studio, and Spencer joked that she and her co-host should carpool everyday.
The anchors “got the scoop” on what the new studio is like from some fellow ABC stars.
GMA is the final show to make the move to the new headquarters. It follows The View, The Tamron Hall Show and Live with Kelly and Mark.
As they settled into their new digs, Spencer, 55, and Champion, 63, spent some time with their “ABC friends,” including Joy Behar, David Muir, Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos.
ABC/Heidi Gutman
They ran into Behar, who co-hosts The View with Whoopi Goldberg, Ana Navarro, Alyssa Farah Griffin, Sara Haines and Sunny Hostin in the building, who used the moment to ask Spencer for help designing her dressing room. The View relocated to the new Disney headquarters in September.
Muir, who hosts ABC World News from the building, too, was their next run-in, and he advised Spencer and Champion to keep their key cards on them as he revealed someone once got stuck in a stairwell because they didn’t have theirs.
ABC/Heidi Gutman
Consuelos and Ripa were the last friends that they saw, and they echoed Muir’s advice, with Consuelos jokingly giving Champion a bag of popcorn for him to use as a means of leaving a trail so he could find his way back to GMA‘s studio.
“It took me two weeks to find the bathroom on my own,” Ripa admitted. “But when I did finally find the bathroom by myself, everyone applauded me.”
Live with Kelly and Mark relocated in April, and like GMA, bid an emotional farewell to its previous studio, where the show had been filmed for 37 years.
On their last day in the Times Square studio, the anchors were emotional as they reflected on the life-changing experiences they’d had in the space.
“I just remember thinking, I’m a little girl from Mississippi, and I’m working in Times Square. It’s just so majestic,” Roberts said of her first day on set. “I just remember the energy and looking around going, ‘This is our home.’ All these years later it still feels that way.”
Meteorologist Ginger Zee felt the same way. “My first time in Times Square coming to this studio was magical. I mean truly, I pulled up and the stop light on 44th, I just remember looking up and thinking, ‘This cannot be my life.'”
ABC/Paula Lobo
“This is our home,” Spencer said. “We are here all the time. We treat it like [you’re] going past your brother or sister’s bedroom.”
The popular morning show aired its final episode in its home studio of nearly 26 years on Friday, June 13. The first episode from inside the iconic studio aired on Sept. 13, 1999.
Prior to that, GMA aired at the ABC News headquarters, where it first premiered in 1975.
