In 'Walking Distance,' what is Martin Sloan's hometown called?

In “Walking Distance,” Martin Sloan’s hometown is called Homewood.

Martin is a 36-year-old New York advertising executive exhausted by modern life. During a country drive, he stops at a gas station and learns that Homewood, his childhood town, is close enough to reach on foot.

When he enters town, Homewood appears frozen in the past. The drugstore still sells ice-cream sodas for ten cents, and Martin discovers that he has somehow returned to 1934, when he was a boy. He even encounters his younger self in the town park.

The episode was written by Rod Serling and stars Gig Young as Martin. Its central idea is not simply time travel but the impossibility of literally returning to an idealized childhood. Martin’s encounter with his younger self and his parents forces him to recognize that memory has made the past seem more perfect than it really was. Homewood is therefore both a setting and a symbol of nostalgia.