Day 1, 2 and 3 have all been blogged (check them out below if you missed those) so I’m swiftly moving on to the super cool Day 4.
We’d pre-planned our days quite meticulously but the plans were open to change. Day 4 however pretty much went to plan. Well sort of…
Day 4 – as I had planned it, was to be ‘Lady K’s Movie Tour’.
I thought we could start with breakfast at Katz’s Deli, THE diner from When Harry Met Sally and then work our way back up this list from the bottom (missing out any locations we’d already done – I stupidly thought we could do all of this in a day!):
1. Columbia University (Ghostbusters/Spiderman)
2. Maya Schaper Cheese and Antiques, 106 West 69th St, Upper West Side (The Shop Around The Corner in You’ve Got Mail)
3. Tavern on the Green, Central Park at West 67th Street, Central Park (Used in Ghostbusters as the restaurant Louis Tully runs up to before he gets attacked by the snarling animal)
4. 300 Central Park West, Upper West Side (Dana Barrett’s building in Ghostbusters)
5. Fountains at the Lincoln Center, 140 West 65th St, UWS (Fountains used in Ghostbusters/Sweet Home Alabama)
6. FAO Schwarts (Big)
7. Tiffany and Co (Breakfast at Tiffany’s/Sweet Home Alabama)
8. The Plaza Hotel (It Could Happen To You/Home Alone 2)
9. St Patrick’s Cathedral (Gremlins 2)
10. Rockerfeller Roof Gardens (Spiderman)
11. Rockerfeller Center (Elf/Home Alone 2)
12. Times Square (Gremlins 2/Spiderman/King Kong)
13. The News Building, 42nd St between 2nd and 3rd Ave (Superman aka The Daily Planet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
14. Grand Central Station (Armageddon/Superman)
15. New York Public Library (TDAT!!!!! Ghostbusters and Spiderman)
16. Empire State Building (Elf/King Kong!!!/Sleepless in Seatle)
17. Macy’s (Miracle on 34th St)
18. Madison Sq Garden (Godzilla?)
19. Flat Iron Building (Armageddon/Spiderman)
20. Corner of Bedford and Grove (Friends Building)
21. Katz’s Deli, 205 East Houston St (When Harry Met Sally. THE diner!!!!!!!)
22. Moondance Diner 6th Avenue and Canal Street (This is technically now just the site of the moondance diner seeing as the actual diner has now been moved to Wyoming!!!!)
23. Hook and Ladder 8, 14 North Moore St (Ghostbusters fire station!!!!!)
All sights were found on this fabulous website:
Anyway, needless to say we didn’t quite manage to fit it all in. We didn’t start at Katz Deli and instead decided to head straight for Columbia University at the top of the list and find somewhere cheap to eat nearby. Being near a University there was no problem finding somewhere cheap to eat and we soon stumbled upon Max’s Caffe. I had delicious crepes with Nutella and D had a Fretatta (also delicious). From Max’s we headed straight to Columbia University, stop 1 on the tour.
You may recognise Columbia University from the first Spider-Man movie and Ghostbusters. The campus was filled with gorgeous architecture and as it was such a sunny day it was so nice just to walk around it.Stop 2 on the tour was Maya Schaper Cheese and Antiques used as The Shop Around The Corner in You’ve Got Mail. We covered this later in the day.Stop 3 and 4 were both Ghostbusters locations funnily enough, The Tavern on the Green in Central Park, which was used in Ghostbusters as the restaurant Louis Tully runs up to before he gets attacked by the snarling creature, was closed – we discovered this on the previous day when we’d been in Central Park – so we couldn’t see that and instead decided to see Stop 4 up close. We’d seen 300 Central Park West, the Upper West Side apartment block where Dana Barrett lives, from Belvedere Castle on the previous day, but I wanted to see it in the flesh so to speak.
Having not got very far at all and desperately needing to use some facilities, we popped into The American Museum of Natural History and got a little waylaid by the movie locations inside – from Night At The Museum.
When we came out of the museum we were rather ravenous and grabbed a snack from one of the many vendors outside. We then headed to Stop 2 of the tour - The Shop Around The Corner in You’ve Got Mail. As it is now a rather uninspiring dry cleaners shop I didn’t take a photo of it, though now I quite wished I had. :0(From there we decided to make a stop at The Magnolia Bakery for a cupcake and sit down before continuing on with the tour. Stop 5 was the Fountains at the Lincoln Center which were used in Ghostbusters and Sweet Home Alabama (not that I can remember the scene they’re in from Sweet Home Alabama?
Although not part of the tour, we also stopped at Columbus Circle which I later discovered was featured in many movies including It Could Happen to You, The Devil Wears Prada, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, Taxi Driver, Die Hard with a Vengeance, Enchanted, I Am Legend, Cloverfield, The Other Guys and Ghostbusters, as the site where the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man begins his trek to Dana Barrett’s apartment building. The site was also used as the dominant location in the movie August Rush.
From Columbus Circle we headed to stop 6 of the tour – FAO Schwarts – to see the Big Piano (the one you stand on, so big in the sense that it’s huge and also because it features in the Tom Hanks movie Big).
We’d already completed stop 7 – Tiffany and Co (from Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Sweet Home Alabama) – and 8 - The Plaza Hotel (from It Could Happen To You and Home Alone 2) - on Day 2 of our NY Adventure so it was straight on to stop 9 - St Patrick’s Cathedral which featured in Gremlins 2.
We knew we would be covering stop 10 - Rockerfeller Roof Gardens (Spiderman) - 11 – Rockerfeller Center (Elf/Home Alone 2) and 16 – Empire State Building (Elf/King Kong/Sleepless in Seatle) on another day so they were purposely left out of the tour. We’d already done it by day but we decided to cover stop 12 – Times Square (Gremlins 2/Spiderman/King Kong) – at the best possible time to see Times Square – at night!
We’d already covered stop 13 – The Metlife Building (Superman aka The Daily Planet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), stop 14 – Grand Central Station (Armageddon/Superman), stop 15 - New York Public Library (The Day After Tomorrow!!!!! Ghostbusters and Spiderman) and stop 19 – Flat Iron Building (Armageddon/Spiderman) and decided we weren’t that bothered about seeing stop 17 – Macy’s (Miracle on 34th St) or 18 – Madison Sq Garden (Godzilla). We were however, still hopeful that we’d get to see stop 20 – Corner of Bedford and Grove (Friends Building), 21 – Katz’s Deli, 205 East Houston St (When Harry Met Sally. THE diner!!!!!!!) and 23 – Hook and Ladder 8, 14 North Moore St (Ghostbusters fire station!!!!!) on another day. So after a horrendous dinner experience at TGI Fridays in Times Square (I won’t bore you with the details but if you’re going to NY I STRONGLY advise against going there!) we decided to head back to our Pod for some much needed rest.
Only two more days to go readers, I hope you’re still enjoying the New York Adventures.
Until next time… Lady K x
