New York New York

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A NOTE: I wrote this story for the British film magazine EMPIRE some 20 years ago. And although much has changed since then, much has stayed the same. On re-reading it two decades on, I'm impressed by two things: the amount of research I put into it in those pre-Google days (when research meant a lot of visits to the library) and how many times British idioms and phrases (like "cloth-eared") were worked into my copy. A side note: the BBC was apparently so impressed by this piece that they had the cast and crew of one of their morning chat shows come over from London to New York so that they could film me acting as their tour guide to movie locations. Was I any good?Alas, it was in an era before YouTube. I never saw it.

The star of so many classic movies over the years, New York City remains a tantalizing mystery to the visitor searching for those memorable locations. Where exactly does Marilyn let the wind blow up around her from the subway? And in which Manhattan hostelry is The Godfather's Luca Brasi finally condemned to sleep with the fishes? Tom Soter  – Empire's man in Manhattan and native New Yorker – supplies the ultimate moviegoer's guide to the city that never sleeps ...

NEW YORK

NEW YORK 

...or rather its principal borough, the island of Manhattan – so good to movie-makers it's even been described as a huge backlot that people rather inconveniently live in. A few movie folk, like Woody Allen, work there simply because it's home, with the little man admitting that, "I am serene in the knowledge that, if I want to, I can always go home and get a sweater." Others, from Scorsese to Spielberg, find the city to be a veritable Aladdin's cave of back-up services, among them more than 6,000 businesses directly engaged in assisting the film and tape industries, some 100 sound studios, 200 sound stages, 75 camera lighting companies, and nearly 200 editing facilities. And, of course, the grand old city itself has doubled up onscreen for locations as diverse as Washington D.C., Maine, Florida, the Midwest, and, er, Czechoslovakia.

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For some, such as the aforementioned Mr. Allen, the physical depiction of New York City is an essential ingredient in any serious appraisal of their work. Other supposedly classic Manhattan stories – New York New York, Once Upon A Time In America, GoodFellas – were, by contrast, shot in Hollywood, Brooklyn, and Queens respectively.

The major task, however, for any movie-lover visiting the heart of New York City, is finding out exactly what happened where. Today's tour, ladies and gentlemen, begins at the southernmost tip of the island they call Manhattan. . .     

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THE STATUE OF LIBERTY Lady Liberty, situated just off the southern tip of Manhattan, has, of course, been used in just about every epic immigrant drama ever made to signify that, yes, the action has now moved to New York City, USA, land of the free, etc. Hitchcock's Saboteur (1942) is notable for its use of a Hollywood stand-in for the famous landmark as villain and hero fight out the battle in the torch that supposedly symbolizes the struggles of World War II. The real thing can be seen, however, in the somewhat less memorable Remo - Unarmed And Dangerous (1986) in which the "hero" has a battle on the scaffolding that surrounded the then 100-year old statue at the time, while the statue itself comes alive in Ghostbusters 2 (1989) and is also the monument at which Daryl Hannah first arrives on land in 1984's Splash.

THE STATEN ISLAND FERRY Until the opening of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge in 1964, the Staten Island Ferry was the only means of contact between New York's fifth borough and the island of Manhattan. Seen at its best in Mike Nichols' Working Girl (1988) and 1937's Shall We Dance? when Fred Astaire serenaded Ginger Rogers onboard with “They Can't Take That Away From Me,” the ferry is still the best and cheapest way of seeing the island, with the 30-minute scenic ride costing just 50 cents.

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BATTERY PARK Located where the Staten Island Ferry begins its Journey, Battery Park is the scene of the amnesia sequence in 1985's Desperately Seeking Susan when Rosanna Arquette meets up with motorcycling Aidan Quinn and a group of thugs. Also glimpsed in one of the many car chase sequences in Freejack (1992).

LOWER MANHATTAN (From Wall Street to Tribeca)

WALL STREET The street itself doesn't amount to much, except it does of course house the New York Stock Exchange, seen as the symbol of 80s greed and excess in John Landis's Trading Places (1983), Oliver Stone's Wall Street (1987) and Brian De Palma's The Bonfire Of The Vanities (1990). Also used in 1948 gritty police drama The Naked City.

THE WORLD TRADE CENTER  The famous pair of 110-story towers made a major appearance in 1976's King Kong remake as a poor substitute for the original's decidedly phallic Empire State Building, with the ESB' s management so outraged at being passed over this time around that they staged a protest outside the WTC in the shape of a picket by men in monkey suits. Also appeared as the landing pad for Kurt Russell's helicopter in 1981's Escape from New York and supplied Cliff Robertson's office in 1975's Three Days of the Condor.

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NEW YORK COUNTY COURTHOUSE (60 Centre Street) This 1926 New York classic serves as the location for Kris Edmund Gwenn's trial in 1947's Miracle On 34th Street, the epic jury deliberations in 1957's Twelve Angry Men, the legal shenanigans of Redford and Winger in 1986's Legal Eagles and the antics of James Woods in 1988's Fighting Justice (a.k.a. True Believer). Worth a visit too to see city documents dating back to the 18th century.

THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE  Designed by German engineering wizard John Augustus Roebling and completed in 1884, the 1,595-foot long bridge from Manhattan to Brooklyn was, at the time, the longest suspension bridge anywhere in the world and the first to be constructed of steel. It has since entered New York – and movie – legend, serving as the location for a whole host of movie escapades, among them the apeman's escape in 1942's Tarzan's New York Adventure, Michael Jackson's "ease on down the road" in 1978's The Wiz, Meryl Streep's champagne drinking in 1982's Sophie's Choice, and, of course, the quite extraordinarily silly chase sequence in 1991's Hudson Hawk.

THE TWEED COURTHOUSE (52 Chambers Street) Built between 1861 and 1871, this four-story New York City courthouse got its name from the notoriously corrupt Boss Tweed, the man who dominated city and county politics at the time. Used in the movies to double up as the Great Hall of Ellis Island in 1974's Hester Street, a mental institution in 1980's Dressed to Kill and a Boston courthouse in 1982's The Verdict.

THE HALL OF RECORDS (31 Chambers Street) The lobby and bathroom of this elegant 1906 home of the city's Surrogate Court can be seen in the fantasy sequence in 1989's Married to the Mob in which Dean Stockwell has nightmares about getting wasted in the we.

CHINATOWN The central Mott Street and other locations in the area seemed to crop up all over the place in Michael Cimino's Year Of The Dragon (1985), although the actual locations were, in fact, built in North Carolina. Still, this tightly knit enclave just next to Little Italy does feature heavily in 1988's Fighting Justice, including a brutal murder on Pell Street.

LITTLE ITALY This legendary part of town, seen in The Godfather, The Freshman, and just about every Martin Scorsese movie, begins at Mulberry Street and is notable for its late 19th century tenements, those eminently filmable six-story buildings containing the “railroad flats,” apartment after apartment arranged in a straight line, not unlike a whole series of railroad cars (hence the name). As recently as 1932, 98 percent of the residents of this area were of Italian origin, with a spillover from neighboring Chinatown cutting heavily into that figure in the years since World War II.

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SOHO (South of Houston Street, bounded by Broadway, Canal Street, and Sixth Avenue)

104 PRINCE STREET Part of Soho's famous cast-iron loft district, this is where Patrick Swayse shuffled off that mortal coil – sort of – in Ghost.

TRIBECA (The triangle below Canal Street)

14 NORTH MOORE STREET The exteriors for 1984's Ghostbusters and its 1989 sequel were all shot in New York, most notably the old firehouse on 14 North Moore Street, part of the triangular neighborhood bordered by Canal Street, West Broadway, and Washington Street. The interiors, however, were shot back in L.A., officially because the firehouse was still in daily operation at the time, more likely because everybody wanted to get the hell back to the coast.

151 HUDSON STREET Home to, at various times, Martin Scorsese, Harvey Keitel and local boy made very good Robert De Niro.

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289 HUDSON STREET The exact location of Club Berlin, the bar in which Griffin Dunne ends up in Scorsese's After Hours (1985). Originally called The Blue Note, the building is now a working deli, although Scorsese fans can still visit the Emerald Pub on 308 Spring Street, an Irish taproom which doubled up as the leather bar in the movie.

375 GREENWICH STREET  Formerly an impressive old coffee factory, this corner building is now The Tribeca Centre, unofficial home of New York's movie community, housing, among others, De Niro's Tribeca company, the offices of sex lies and videotape's producers, Miramax, and, of course, the rubberneckers' paradise of the Tribeca Bar and Grill.

GREENWICH VILLAGE (From Sixth Avenue to the Hudson, bounded by West 4th Street and West 14th Street)

THE BACKLOT STREETS This cluster of small, winding streets in the village – Bedford, Grove, Barrow and Commerce – is full of ivy-cloaked brownstones and townhouses, complete with courtyards and mews, and is thus a near-permanent haven for filmmakers and TV directors (hence the name). Chumley’s, at 86 Bedford Street, for example, was used in 1981's Reds and in Bright Lights Big City seven years later, while The Cherry Lane Theatre on 38 Commerce Street, was also in Reds as the site of the Provincetown Playhouse.

57 MINETTA STREET Only one block long, Minetta Street is easy to block off and thus a favorite among the city's cinematographers, especially as it curves, meaning there is no chance of accidentally including the large, very modern Avenue of  the Americas which runs parallel. The house at 57 Minetta Street is home to Serpico in the 1973 film of the same name.

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119 MACDOUGAL STREET Home of the Caffe Reggio, the dark, smoky coffee house that serves as a location and song title in 1971's Shaft, the aforementioned Serpico, and 1973's Next Stop Greenwich Village. Still there, still serving damn fine coffee.

SHERIDAN SQUARE/ WEST 4TH STREET The southwestern corner, featuring a Village Cigars storefront, appeared in 50s get-up in Paul Mazursky's aforementioned Next Stop Greenwich Village, later reverting to itself for 1988's Fighting Justice.

16 WEST 11TH STREET The home address of ambitious young actor Dustin Hoffman in the late 60s. The little fellow quickly moved out in March 1970, however, when the house next door, home to radical political outfit The Weathermen, went up in smoke after the group's store of explosives suddenly ignited.

EAST VILLAGE (East from Sixth Avenue to the East River, bounded by Houston Street to the south, 14th Street to the north, and the Bowery on the West.)

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KATZ’S DELICATESSEN (205 East Houston Street) An old-style, non-kosher Jewish deli, this 104-year-old Manhattan favorite had its most memorable movie moment with Meg Ryan's fake orgasm in Rob Reiner's aforementioned When Harry Met Sally. "We get a lot of tour groups coming in to see the place," says manager Kevin Albinder. "We even have a marker on the table where Billy [Crystal] and Meg were sitting."

THE EAST BROADWAY SUBWAY STATION (Rutgers Station) Amy Irving's self-reliant artist is seen leaving this funky old station in Joan Micklin Silver's Crossing Delancey (1988), itself something of a paean to the delights of life in the Big Apple.

238 ELIZABETH STREET One of the many turn-of-the-century small streets in the East Village, this particular address was home to the butcher shop run by Peter Riegert in the aforementioned Crossing Delancey.

UNION SQUARE/GRAMERCY PARK/CHELSEA

(East 14th Street to West 25th Street)

THE CHELSEA HOTEL (222 West 23rd Street) Opened in 1884 as one of the city's first owner-occupied apartment houses, the Chelsea has been a hotel since 1905, serving as a temporary home to, among others, Eugene O'Neill, Arthur Miller, Sid Vicious, and Arthur C. Clarke, the latter writing 2001: A Space Odyssey in his room. In the movies, Andy Warhol's The Chelsea House (1966) was shot here, while, true to life, this is the final check-in address for Gary Oldman as Sid Vicious in Alex Cox's Sid and Nancy(1986).

THE FLATIRON BUILDING (175 Fifth Avenue)  

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Built in 1902 as The Fuller Building, this oddly shaped structure was given the nickname of The Flatiron Building for its iron-shaped facade and now lends its title to the district immediately to the south, a lively community of photographers, residential loft-owners and adverting agencies. This Manhattan landmark's first role in the movies came just three years after its construction in the little-seen but exciting short, The Flatiron Building on a Windy Day (1903), while James Stewart and Kim Novak kiss on its roof in 1958's Bell Book and Candle.

THE METROPOLITAN LIFE INSURANCE BUILDING (11 Madison Square) The location of the second Madison Square Garden (1890-1925), this open in 1932 as The Metropolitan Life Insurance Building and has since featured in After Hours as Griffin Dunne's office, in 1987's Radio Days and 1981's Eyewitness.

STUYVESANT PARK This pleasant city park directly in front of the Beth-Israel Hospital is the very park where Nick Nolte and Barbra Streisand share a therapuetic hot dog in 1991's Prince Of Tides.

MIDTOWN MANHATTAN (34th Street to 59th Street)

MACY'S (34th Street at Herald Square) Built in 1901, the self-proclaimed world's largest store runs from Sixth to Seventh Avenue and features most memorably in 1947's Miracle on 34th Street in which department store Santa Edmund Gwenn must prove he is the real Kris Kringle to avoid a spell in the crazy house. Rosalind Russell also had stab at selling roller skates here in 1958's Auntie Mame.

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THE EMPIRE STATE BUILDING (350 Fifth Avenue) The classic 102-story built in just eight months, opening on May 1, 1931, and attaining legendary status just two months later as the building which King Kong climbs with lady love Fay Wray. The 18-inch model monkey never went near the building, of course, although a balloon version of Kong was finally attached in 1981 as part ESB's 50th birthday celebrations. Alas, he stayed up for just a few hours as the nylon balloon kept leaking, leading the gradual deflation of the eight-story-high model ape.

GRAND CENTRAL STATION (9 East 42nd Street) Modeled after the Louvre and with railing higher than the nave of Notre Dame, Grand Central has always attracted filmmakers, from 1959's North By Northwest through to 1991's The Fisher King, via 1982's A Stranger Is Watching, 1984's The Cotton Club and 1988's The House on Carroll Street. Visitors on the Manhattan movie trail are strongly advised to sample the oyster stew in the basement.

THE CHRYSLER BUILDING (405 Lexington Avenue)  The world's tallest building for one year only before The Empire State Building opened acted as the unlikely nesting place for the flying Aztec dinosaur in 1982's Q: The Winged Serpent, features in 1986's Hannah and Her Sisters, and provides the impressive opening shot for 1990's The Bonfire of the Vanities, shot from atop one of the building's chrome gargoyles.

THE ALGONQUIN HOTEL (59 West 44th Street) Opened in 1902 and later home of Dorothy Parker's Round Table, the Algonquin can be seen in 1963's Wives And Lovers, 1982's Rich And Famous, and, of course, in 1987's erotic caper 9 1/2 Weeks.

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THE DIAMOND DISTRICT (West 46,47 and 48 Streets, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues) In John Schlesinger's 1976 thriller Marathon Man, Laurence Olivier's Nazi orthodontist flees from his assailants on 46th Street, one of Manhattan's three bustling, crowded thoroughfares that have housed the stores of predominantly Jewish diamond merchants for decades. 

ROCKEFELLER CENTER (48th to 52nd Streets) Composed of 21 buildings, among them the main General Electric building – seen to good effect in 1949's On the Town  Rockefeller Center is used briefly for establishing shots of New York in 1937's Nothing Sacred, 1953's How to Marry a Millionaire, and, inevitably, 1979's Manhattan. 

THE TRANS LUX THEATER (52nd Street and Lexington Avenue) The theater which Marilyn Monroe stands in front of when her skirt is memorably blown upwards in 1955's The Seven-Year Itch. The theater, unfortunately, is now an office building. The subway grating, however, still remains firmly intact.

THE WALDORF-ASTORIA HOTEL (301 Park Avenue) Built in 1931, this luxurious 1,800-room hotel has appeared in 1969's The Out-of-Towners, 1974's The Great Gatsby, and 1982's My Favorite Year.

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F.A.O. SCHWARTZ (767 Fifth Avenue at 58th Street) Billed as The Ultimate Toystore, this 130-year old kiddies' mecca was immortalized in the movies by Tom Hanks’ duet with Robert Loggia on an oversize piano in 1988’s Big.

BLOOMINGDALE'S (1000 Third Avenue at 59th Street) This definitively chic department store for posh East Siders is the new home for Robin Williams in 1984's Moscow on The Hudson, and, more memorably as the place where Daryl Hannah manages to explode a line of TV sets in 1987’s Splash.

THE PLAZA HOTEL (Fifth Avenue at 59th Street) Built in 1907, the 18-story Plaza has long been hailed as the world's most luxurious hotel, boasting 1,100 rooms, private suites comprising 17 rooms in all, marble fireplaces and staircases, ten elevators and two entire floors of public rooms. Not surprisingly, the Plaza has long been a popular choice for movie-makers, popping up in, among a host of others, 1968's Funny Girl, 1970's Midnight Cowboy, 1973' s The Way We Were, 1981's Arthur, 1985's Brewster's Millions, and 1986's Crocodile Dundee.

CENTRAL PARK (60th Street to 110th Street) Built in 1856 on the site of squatters' hovels and marshy land, the 840-acre Central Park is a movie maker's dream, comprising footpaths, waterways, hills, woods and lakes, all slap bang in the middle of Manhattan. In addition to its central role in 1991's The Fisher King, Central Park appears as a doorway to the past in 1948's Portrait Of Jennie, as a cyclist's paradise in 1949's On the Town, as a deadly place to spend the night in 1969's The Out-of-Towners, as a deadly place to take a jog in 1976's Marathon Man, and as a bizarre paradise of free love and 60s ditties in 1979's Hair. On a lighter note, Kermit jogs through Central park in the aptly titled The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984).

UPPER EAST SIDE (60th Street to 96th Street, York Avenue to Fifth Avenue)

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FRIDAY'S (1152 First Avenue at 63rd and 1st) Not to be confused with TGI Friday's, this popular bistro is the scene of Tom Cruise's frantic bartending antics in 1988's Cocktail, with all the interior filming done in just one evening and the bar itself then being recreated in, er, Canada. "They were so detail-orientated," sighs manager Diane Radovich. "They even called us to ask for a listing of the songs on the jukebox."

P.J. CLARKE'S (913 Third Avenue) The pub made legend in Billy Wilder's The Lost Weekend (1945) with the fame brought about by the movie ensuring that P.J.'s still survives in a neighborhood now dominated by office towers.

800 PARK AVENUE  The address from which Tom Hanks takes his reluctant mutt for a windswept walk in 1990's The Bonfire of the Vanities. Posh Park Avenue pops up in any number of features as an establishing shot that we have now moved distinctly upmarket on the Manhattan trail.

171 EAST 71st STREET The home of Holly Golightly (Audrey Hepburn) in 1961's Breakfast at Tiffany's. Still an exclusive Upper East Side address some 30 years on.

THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART (Fifth Avenue at 81st Street) The largest art museum in the world refused Brian De Palma permission to shoot inside the 1.6 million square foot building for his seduction scene in 1980's Dressed to Kill, forcing the director to shoot just the outside and substitute the Philadelphia Museum of Fine Art for his interiors.

UPPER WEST SIDE (60th Street to 125th Street, Central Park West to Riverside Drive)

LINCOLN CENTER (Columbus Avenue, 62nd to 66th Streets) The world's first formally designer cultural center opened in 1966 at a cost of $185 million, built on the site of the condemned tenements that supplied a number of the locations for 1961's seminal West Side Story. The Center's most notable movie credit in its own right is in 1968's The Producers, with all lights and fountains springing to life in celebration of Zero Mostel's scheme to raise cash via Springtime for Hitler. Most memorably, the Metropolitan Opera House – the huge-windowed front of the Center – was the place where Cher and Nicolas Cage met for their first date in 1987's Moonstruck.

55 CENTRAL PARK WEST This Art Deco cooperative is the building in which the spooks appear in 1984's Ghostbusters, with residents sharing the $100,000 payment for five days of filming after the folks at 1 Fifth Avenue – the original choice turned it down.

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THE DAKOTA (1 East 72nd Street) Built in 1884, the Dakota building comprises 85 suites, each consisting of between four and 20 separate rooms, and has played host to, among others, Lauren Bacall, Jaek Palance, Gilda Radner, Boris: KarlofF, and, of course, John Lennon, assassinated in the entrance archway in December 1980. In the movies, The Dakota is most famous as the creepy love nest for Satan and his witches in 1968's Rosemary's Baby.

THE ANSONIA (2107-2109 Broadway) A 16-story Beaux Arts building that opened in 1903, The Ansonia was the site of the Continental Baths, the gay spa at which Bette Midler first found an audience in the 70s, and pops up in the movies as Walter Matthau's home in 1975's The Sunshine Boys and as the location of the initial, brutal murder in 1975's Three Days of the Condor.

THE APTHORP APARTMENTS (2207 Broadway/390 West End Avenue) This 12-story 1908 building features a striking limestone entranceway and interior courtyard and was once home to Nora Ephron, author of Heartburn and When Harry Met Sally and, more recently, director of This Is My Life. Features, naturally enough, in Heartburn, as well as in 1976's Network and 1984's The Cotton Club.

SHAKESPEARE & COMPANY (2259 Broadway, between 80th and 81st) This popular West Side bookstore occupies two stories in the heart of New York's liberal intellectual neighborhood and was thus the perfect setting for Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan's surprise meeting in Rob Reiner's When Harry Met Sally (1990).

THE CLAREMONT RIDING ACADEMY (175 West 89 Street) Built in 1889 and home to, among others, Jackie Onassis and Diana Ross' offspring, the Academy can be spotted in 1981's Eyewitness when William Hurt, stalked by a killer inside the four-story barn, saves himself by – hey! – releasing the horses.

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404 RIVERSIDE DRIVE This 48-unit housing cooperative, built in 1909, can be seen dressed up as a 30s Fifth Avenue hotel in 1991's Billy Bathgate, and as itself in 1983's Strange Invaders.

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY (114th-120th Streets, Broadway to Amsterdam Avenue) Founded in 1754 as King's College, the old ivy-encrusted campus makes its debut movie appearance as the set for the black protest scenes in Spike Lee's forthcoming Malcolm X.

125TH STREET The unofficial border into Harlem and the more exciting route out to the airports, 125th Street is the central locale for all the action in 1971's Shaft.

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THE SUBWAY  With more than 700 miles of track beginning at the Brooklyn Bridge and South Ferry and running up the East Side and West side tracks, the New York subway system is the largest in the world and has been used extensively in movies over the years, including, among others, Enemies: A Love Story, State of Grace, When Harry Met Sally (West 96th Street), Ghost (West 40th and 8th Avenue) The Taking of Pelham 123, and Coming to America, which spent a total of six days shooting underground. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, administrators of the subway, prefers filmmakers to use one of two locations, either the East Side-West Side shuttle because it is a dead-end train and thus does not tie up the regular traffic, or else the Hoyt-Schermerhorn station which is an inactive stop and the site of the subway's own museum. Outside of Manhattan, the elevated section of the system provided the scenes for the memorable final chase in 1971's The French Connection.

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The Godfather and New York  FOR THE 1972 ORIGINAL installment of Francis Ford Coppola's epic gangster saga, the Paramount chieftains back on the west coast initially insisted on keeping costs on the troubled production to a minimum by shooting all the required New York scenes on the studio backlot in Hollywoodland. The decision was promptly reversed, however, just as soon as production designer Dean Tavoularis threatened to add two stories to each backlot in order to replicate the look of the city. Eventually, more than 100 locations in and around Manhattan were used by Coppola, with the half-dozen detailed below comprising six of the very best. For the 1974 sequel, Sixth Street, in between Avenue A and Avenue B, was dressed up as Little Italy circa 1917, with the production crew spending six weeks in the area, repaving streets, removing lamps, and blocking out storefronts. Finally, The Godfather Part III (1990) used just a few New York locations, most notably the Waldorf-Astoria hotel and, in Little Italy, the old St Patrick's Cathedral on Mott Street and, just a few blocks away, the annual San Gennaro festival on Elizabeth Street ...

SIX LOCATIONS HE COULDN'T REFUSE

LOUIS' RESTAURANT IN THE BRONX (At the "El" Trestle of The White Plains Road Subway) Okay, so it's not strictly speaking in Manhattan, but hey, who cares just so long as the gun's securely fastened to the back of that old-fashioned john with the pull thing?

THE EDISON HOTEL (228 West 47th Street) The scene of Luca Brasi's violent death after the big man goes to try to infiltrate the Sollozzo clan. Have your hand stapled to the counter by a scheming barman! Blow your cheeks out at the same time! Have a fish sent to your family!

THE CAVALRY CEMETERY (Queens) , The final resting place for the Don lies outside Manhattan limits in Queens, also the borough used for the majority of Scorsese's scenes in 1990's GoodFellas.

RADIO CITY MUSIC HALL (1260 Avenue of the Americas) The Bells of St. Mary's is the movie that Michael and Kay have just visited at the old music hall whenMichael spots the newspaper report of his father's assassination attempt. Ring up Sonny from the telephone kiosk nearby! Learn how to make a stew for 15 guys! Shoot McCluskey in the throat!

THE NEW YORK EYE AND EAR INFIRMARY (310 East 14th Street) The old hospital to which the Godfather is taken after his nearfatal shooting at the fruit and vegetable store. Stand on the steps where Michael and Enzo the baker pretended to be bodyguards! Visit the room where the Don lay unattended until Michael came to his rescue. Have your jaw broken by McCluskey!

110 AND 120 LONGFELLOW ROAD (Staten Island) These two Tudor homes were used by Coppola for the Long Island estate of the Don and his clan. Connie's wedding to Carlo Rizzithe man later seen having the contents of a bin emptied over his head by a rather over-exuberant Sonny-was shot at 120 Longfellow, took four days to shoot and featured more than 700 extras.

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Chapter One: He Adored New York City

ANNIE HALL (1977) Woody and Diane Keaton sit in front of the sea lion pond at the Central Park Zoo as they carryon their running commentary on various passers-by ("He's in the Mafia -linen supply business or cement contracting"). Later, they go to the South Street Seaport and kiss before the panoramic view of the Brooklyn Bridge. Still later, they argue in front of the redbrick town-houses Henry James wrote about off Washington Square Park. Their last (film) moment together is at the northeast corner of 63rd Street by the Lincoln Center, when Woody's voiceover delivers his famous "I need the eggs" gag.

MANHATTAN (1979) The classic opening scene is a montage of famous Manhattan sites, accompanied by Woody's voiceover ("This was still a town that existed in black-and-white"): there is the skyline as seen from Brooklyn, the 59th Street Bridge, where Woody and Diane Keaton later sit watching the sun go down, the Empire Diner, the Staten Island Ferry, the Plaza Hotel, Central Park at sunset. Allen and Diane Keaton have their first kiss in the Hayden Planetarium on Central Park West and 81st Street, while the Russian Tea Room, at 150 West 57th Street, is the renowned eatery – also featured in Tootsie when Dustin Hoffman meets Sydney Pollack - where Woody takes his son for dinner and is asked by the maitre d', quite properly, to put a house jacket over his t-shirt,

BROADWAY DANNY ROSE (1984) The Brill Building at 1141 Broadway, named after the two haberdashers who built and occupied it from 1929 onwards, is where theatrical agent Woody tries to book his clients (a one-legged tap dancer, a one-armed juggler, and the unusual Eddie Clark and his Penguin Who Dresses as a Rabbi). This legendary factory of hit tunes over the years can also be seen in 1945's The House On 92nd Street and 1957's The Sweet Smell of Success. The other prominent landmark is the Carnegie Delicatessen & Restaurant, at 854 Seventh Avenue, where the story opens and closes.

THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO (1985) The Jewel Movie theatre, central to the story, does not actually exist, being especially built in a parking lot near to the Hudson River village of Piermont.

HANNAH AND HER SISTERS (1986) Michael Caine and Barbara Hershey hole up in the St. Regis hotel at 2 East 55th Street, while Mia Farrow's apartment at The Langham on 135 Central Park West is the real-life apartment where she still lives to this day. Sam Waterson, meanwhile, escorts Dianne Weist and Carrie Fisher into the private walk of cottages at Pomander Walk on 260-266 West 95th Street.

RADIO DAYS (1987) The fast food joint Woody visits is Horn & Hardart at 200 East 42nd Street. Radio City itself, meanwhile, is at 1260 Avenue of the Americas, while two locations already mentioned, the St. Regis Hotel and the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company building, are used for Mia Farrow's nightclub and the radio network's office HQ respectively.