Carrie Bradshaw’s ‘Sex and the City’ Brownstone Set to Get Gate to Keep Fans From Climbing Steps
The real-life owner of the building that served as the exterior for Carrie Bradshaw’s apartment in Sex and the City has been granted permission to build a gate in front of the property to prevent fans from climbing on its front steps and disrupting residents.
The building’s owner, Barbara Lorber, asked the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission for permission to build a structure in front of the apartment that has become a “global tourist destination,” she wrote in a letter. Lorber explained that incessant visits from tourists became a disruption for residents even with a “Private Property — No Trespassing” sign and chain posted at the bottom of the building’s steps.
“After 20-plus years of hoping the fascination with my stoop would die away and fans would find a new object for their devotion, I have acknowledged we need something more substantial,” she added in the letter.
Lorber had to ask for approval to build a steel and iron gate due to the building’s location in the Greenwich Village Historic District and the Landmarks Preservation Committee agreed to her request at a Tuesday hearing.
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“That house shouldn’t be gated,” Lorber said at the hearing. “I had hoped for literally decades that this would pass but at this point, I think even someone as stubborn as I am has to admit that this isn’t going away in the near future.”
In her original statement, Lorber said that despite efforts to deter trespassers, some will “climb over the chain, pose, dance or lie down on the steps, climb to the top to stare in the Parlor windows, try to open the main entrance door, or, when drunk late at night, ring the doorbells.”
Lorber purchased the building in 1978 and was approached by a “young location scout” in the 1990s to use the site as the now iconic front of Sarah Jessica Parker’s character’s Upper East Side apartment (though the building is located on the West Side of Manhattan). She agreed to let the show use her building to help out the then-recent NYU graduate, Tyson Bidner, who is now an executive producer of The Bear.
Sex and the City premiered in 1998 and has since become a cultural touchstone in pop culture with six seasons of the original HBO series, two movies, the prequel series The Carrie Diaries and the beloved sequel And Just Like That.
“Take all the pictures you wish standing on the street,” Lorber concluded at the hearing. “But please don’t climb into our space.”
