Have Sex and the City fans stooped too low? Iconic NYC brownstone, and stoop, to be gated off

Most fans of Sex and the City know that Carrie Bradshaw's iconic New York City brownstone is much more than just an apartment.

It's where fictional Carrie — played by Sarah Jessica Parker in all 94 episodes of the original HBO series, both movies, and the reboot, And Just Like That — wrote her columns, kept her Jimmy Choos stacked in her walk-in closet, and stored sweaters in the oven.

It's where Big finally admitted he hates that Carrie eats oranges in bed, where Aiden proposed they get Maui'd, where Jack Berger dumped her on a Post-it, and where Aleksandr Petrovsky murdered a mouse by smacking it with a skillet.

And the front stoop of the three-storey building? It's where Carrie kissed her lovers goodbye, ran out the door to meet her girls for cocktails, and, in one of the most heart-wrenching-yet-validating scenes of the entire series, finally screamed to Big, "You can drive up and down the street all you want, because I don't live here anymore!" 

To quote Kim Cattrall's Samantha Jones when she shows up at Carrie's door in the 2008 movie, holding two bottles of champagne, "a lot of shit went down in this place. Attention must be paid."

But perhaps, fans have paid it too much attention.

On Tuesday, New York City's Landmarks Preservation Commission approved an application for a gate in front of "Carrie's stoop" after Barbara Lorber, who has owned the building since 1978, lamented "the endless presence of interest in my celebrity staircase." 

In the application for 66 Perry Street, a three-family home in Greenwich Village's historic district, Lorber writes that, "My home is now a global tourist destination."

"At any hour of the day or night, there are groups of visitors in front of the house, taking flash photos, engaging in loud chatter, posting on social media, making TikTok videos, or just celebrating the moment," she wrote.

"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."

In the application, she adds that she put a chain across the stoop years ago, but many visitors don't respect it. Lorber explains that people climb over the chain, peek in the parlour windows, try to open the door and ring the doorbells. People have also painted graffiti on the steps and carved their initials into the door frame. 

"I'd hoped for literally decades that this would pass," Lorber told the commission during heartfelt testimony. "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."

How the stoop became famous

Sex and the City premiered on HBO in 1998. The stoop first appeared in Episode 3, according to Architectural Digest, around the same time that Carrie's apartment started evolving into the recognizable, scattered space fans would come to know and love.

The show followed the exploits and relationships of Bradshaw and her three pals for six seasons. In the show, Carrie Bradshaw lived on Manhattan's Upper East Side, which, in real life, is a decent cab ride away from the building used for exterior shots during filming. 

Lorber, the building owner, wrote in her application that she agreed for the brownstone to be used in the series because "felt sorry" for the location scout, a recent grad from NYU film school.

"He told me if he didn't secure THIS house, he would lose his first real job in the business," she wrote.

"At the time, no one knew the show would turn into anything long lasting … much less, the iconic fantasy vehicle and touchstone for NYC's magic that it has become."

Soon, the building would become a stop on the extremely popular Sex and the City tours of New York City.

"I think the location people are most curious and excited about is the staircase they used for Carrie's stoop because it's so iconic of the show. They used it so many times, and there's so many things that happen there," said tour guide Lou Matthews in a 2018 article in Elle.

Even today, multiple tour companies advertise a stop at Carrie's stoop.

Obsessed fans

Author Candace Bushnell, who wrote the 1996 Sex and the City book that inspired the show, recently told the New York Times she could never have foreseen the fan frenzy over the stoop. She also commiserated with Lorber.

"'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."

CBC News has reached out to Bushnell for further comment.

But this also isn't the first time overzealous fans of popular television shows have created problems for homeowners. Nor is it the first gate-based solution.

Homeowners in Albuquerque, N.M., built an iron gate around their house in 2017 because fans of the show Breaking Bad wouldn't stop tossing pizzas on their roof. In the show's third season, a frustrated Walter White tosses a pizza onto his garage roof after having a spat with his wife. The scene became iconic, and fans soon started recreating it with the real-life house.

Frank Sandoval, a tour operator in Albuquerque, told CBC's As It Happens in 2017 that re-enactments of the scene by fans have become such a common problem that he brings a ladder on his tours, so he can retrieve the pizzas for the elderly couple who live there.

Back in New York, Anthony Gillbee, of Melbourne, Australia, had a picture taken with his teenage son on the sidewalk in front of Carrie's brownstone Wednesday to send to his wife. He told the Associated Press he understood that it would be annoying to have people out in front of your house all the time.

"But, you know, it's an iconic venue," he said. "And if you put a gate at the front, it would change the whole appearance of it. And so it wouldn't be Carrie Bradshaw's house anymore."