Reliving Scenes from Favorite Movies
on New York City Tour

by Colette Connolly

Movie fans visiting New York City for the first time might want to consider taking the New York TV & Movie Sites tour, a three-hour jaunt by bus through several Manhattan neighborhoods where filmmakers regularly shoot footage for movies and popular TV shows.

The tour is run by On Location Tours, a New York City-based company that not only offers this particular tour but a variety of other tours, too, taking visitors to locations where scenes from Sex and the City, Gossip Girls, The Sopranos, and other shows were made.

Actor and voiceover talent Brian Taylor is one of several tour guides on the New York TV & Movie Sites tour. A few times a week, Taylor shares his intimate knowledge of the movie industry and New York City’s eclectic neighborhoods.

During a recent tour, which began at Ellen’s Stardust Diner, a legendary spot in the middle of New York’s Times Square, Taylor began by pointing out locations from several recent movies, including The Devil Wears Prada, Vanilla Ice, Enchanted, Michael Clayton, and Spiderman 3. In between locations, Taylor drew our attention to the drop-down video screens playing scenes from several movies that were mentioned on the tour.

Early on, we passed by the Hearst Tower where scenes from Disney’s Confessions of a Shopaholic were filmed in 2008. Taylor told us that the vicinity of Lois Lane’s fictitious apartment in the 1978 Superman movie was located near Columbus Circle, and also in midtown, we had a close-up look at the fountain outside the Plaza Hotel where the opening scene from Friends was filmed.

We learned that the upscale store, Bergdorf Goodman, was featured in a scene from the movie, Arthur, that the New York Public Library was used as a backdrop in an episode of Seinfeld, Sex and the City and the first Spiderman movie, and as we passed the Empire State Building, Taylor reminded us of scenes from King Kong and Sleepless in Seattle.  

On Bedford and Grove Streets in the West Village, our bus stopped a few short blocks away from the Friends building. Although the series itself was shot in Los Angeles, this particular Manhattan building was considered a suitable one for the show’s exterior shots.

At 14 North Moore Street in TriBeCA, Taylor told us that the Hook and Ladder 8 building had served as a backdrop for a scene in the Ghostbusters movie, and the brownstone at 10 St. Luke’s Place is where exterior shots were taken for The Cosby Show.

We discovered that filming in New York City is no easy task. Filmmakers must seek permission from city officials before shooting. Once that’s granted, film companies can spend anywhere from $10,000 to $40,000 per day capturing scenes.

To catch a glimpse of Hollywood’s hottest stars on location in Manhattan, Taylor suggested we visit the website www.onlocationvactions.com or the popular movie database website www.imdb.com that details the careers of thousands of actors and is a treasure trove of media information.

To find out more about the tour, which costs $36, and others offered by On Location tours, visit www.screentours.com or call (212) 209-3370.

Colette Connolly is a New York-based travel writer