When a young location scout knocked on the door of 66 Perry Street in Manhattan’s West Village three decades ago, the homeowner who reluctantly agreed to allow filming on the front stoop couldn’t have imagined that the three-family building would become a cultural treasure better known as Carrie Bradshaw’s home in HBO’s “Sex and the City.”
According to a letter submitted by the building’s owner to the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission and first reported by Emily Sundberg in the Substack newsletter FeedMe, living in the historic brownstone has been less idyllic than it may appear onscreen. That’s because, as the letter states, since the show’s 1998 premiere, the front steps have become a “global tourist destination,” with a never-ending stream of visitors whose excitement has at times overridden their respect of the building’s residents.
“At any hour of the day or night,” reads the letter, “there are groups of visitors in front of the house taking flash photos, engaging in loud chatter, posting on social media, making TikToc (sic) videos, or just celebrating the moment.”
Now, the owner is requesting permission from the commission to build a gate across the front of the stoop that will protect the building from intrusive fans and help the owners “to regain a reasonable quality of life.”
On Tuesday, the commission will hold a public hearing where the plans for the gate will be reviewed and the request will either be approved or denied.
“I lived nearby, so I used to walk by all the time,” said Candace Bushnell, who wrote the book the show is based on. “It was around 2002 or 2004, after the show came out, and we would walk by, and we would just laugh.”
After a while, the building’s owner strung a chain out front to deter trespassers — to no avail. While many people did respect the chain, others did not. The letter to the commission notes that visitors climb over the barrier to “pose, dance or lie down on the steps.”
Hoping that a gate will serve as a better (and more aesthetically pleasing) deterrent, the owner hired the architect Isidoro Cruz to design one that matches the building’s facade. The brownstone was built in 1866 and is part of Greenwich Village’s historic district, meaning that any updates must be approved by the commission. The owner’s letter is followed by a detailed application describing the gate’s proposed steel and cast iron design.
“Sex and the City” ran on HBO from June 1998 until February 2004, but its cultural relevance has endured thanks to two subsequent movies, the 2021 spinoff show “And Just Like That…” and a move to Netflix that began in April 2024 — all of which have made it more accessible to new generations. The coinciding emergence of social media, particularly Instagram, has turned the iconic front stoop into the setting for countless fan photos and videos.
While all of this is incredible for Ms. Bushnell, she can understand why the building’s residents would be frustrated.
“Social media’s really changed a lot — people know about things and they make pilgrimages there for an Instagram photo,” she said. “I think that’s probably why they’re saying, ‘Hey, help us.’ That is something that I never thought would happen when I first started writing ‘Sex and the City.’”
