The owner of the townhouse that features as the exterior of Carrie Bradshaw’s home in Sex and the City has been granted permission to erect a gate to deter tourists from flocking to their home
The owner of the townhouse used for exterior shots of Carrie Bradshaw’s apartment in Sex and the City is planning to build a gate to keep out “the endless presence of interest in my celebrity staircase”.
The three-storey townhouse, which is located in Greenwich Village Historic District, was central in the early seasons of the show. Carrie would spend her less guilded years writing, hosting and trying on outfits in the spacious apartment.
Now New York’s Landmarks Preservation Commission has now granted an application for a gate to be installed as the owner of the building, Barbara Lorber, has noted an endless presence of fans at the property, reports Sky News.
The house’s located is designated as being on the US’s National Register of Historic Places – equivalent to a listed building in the UK. Barbara, who has owned the building since 1978, told the commission: “I’d 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.”
Fans of Carrie, played by Sarah Jessica Parker, often visit the townhouse to grab pictures. This in itself has become an issue for Barbara, who has experienced visitors taking flash photos, talking loudly and posting to social media. Some fans have even added graffiti or carved their initials into the doorframe.
The steps to the building have been chained off with a ‘no trespassing’ sign, but this has failed to deter fans. “They climb over the chain, pose, dance or lie down on the steps, climb to the top to stare in the windows, try to open the main entrance door, or, when drunk late at night, ring the doorbells,” Barbara wrote in her letter to the Commission.
In the show, Bradshaw lived on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, which in real life is around four miles away from the Greenwich Village building. The show also inspired two movies and a sequel series And Just Like That…
Other houses featured in popular TV shows have also attracted large tourist interest, including the building used for exterior shots of the Friends apartment and a New Mexico house used in TV show Breaking Bad.
In 2024, Drayton House — a privately owned mansion with more than a hundred rooms in Northamptonshire, England — experienced flocks of Saltburn fans attempting to get up close to the house, which was featured in the film. Crowds grew when a nearby local posted directions to the estate in TikTok video, which garnered more than 5.5 million views.
