Tour Guide: Scene in New York
Photo: Jane Kratochvil
When anyone who has a TV thinks of New York City, images of Seinfeld, The Sopranos, and Sex and the City immediately come to mind. So in light of the highly anticipated Sex and the City movie, premiering at the end of May, I’ve found a couple of tour companies that take travelers to all the New York TV hot spots, to see filming locations for movies and shows shot in the Big Apple.
This week, the buzz was about the complete Sex and the City experience (minus the, um, sex), now offered by Destination on Location, a “luxury film and travel company” that specializes in one luxury tour of the city. The four-day, five-night tour includes a cocktail hour at Jimmy Choo, lunch at Balthazar, dinner at TAO, plus lots of stops at Versace, Louis K. Meisel Gallery (Charlotte’s Prince Street gallery), and Scoop… and that’s just on the first day. One of Patricia Field‘s stylists will also accompany the tour, giving guests an inside look at New York’s famous fashion quartet.
But pretending to be Carrie or Samantha comes with a hefty price tag (and we begin to wonder, as a columnist, how Carrie could afford any of this) – the tour costs $15,000 per person (and, if you decide to take the tour on the movie’s premiere weekend, it will cost an extra $9,000).
Anyone wishing to see New York film and TV sites without having to sell their firstborn child should look into On Location, a tour company that highlights Sex and the City, The Sopranos, and other filming locations (Spiderman, Will & Grace, Ghostbusters, etc.) around the city.
Their popular Sex and the City tour includes 40 stops at different locations, like at the bakery where Miranda stuffed her face with cupcakes, visiting the church where Samantha meets “The Friar,” and checking out Carrie’s apartment (well, the outside of it, anyway). The three-hour tour starts at 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. Monday-Friday and at 10 a.m., 11 a.m., and 3 p.m. on weekends. And, best of all, the tour only costs $40. Due to a stop at The Pleasure Chest (where Charlotte bought her “Rabbit”), children under 12 aren’t allowed on the tour.
For $42, visitors can also check out On Location’s four-hour Sopranos tour, which stops at Father Phil’s Parish, Bada Bing, and the restaurant where the series’ final scene was filmed. The company’s Central Park tour (think The Boathouse Cafe in When Harry Met Sally and Tavern on the Green in Ghostbusters) and New York TV and Movie Sites tour (think Spider-Man, The Devil Wears Prada, and Men in Black locations) are also worth a trip if you’re not a Tony Soprano or Carrie Bradshaw fan. On Location also has a Washington, D.C. film tour (the Exorcist steps in Georgetown, Forrest Gump), which we’d like to check out.
- Nat Geo Expeditions
Jane Kratochvil via Flickr
