The interesting part that I did not know, about 10 years ago, I cannot remember the exact time the tour guide stated, the mayor of NYC passed a law that made it very cheap to film in New York. As I said, I cannot remember the exact details, but if at least 75% of the show or TV was filmed in NY, you can save on a lot of cost. In addition, as long as noone of the crew is interacting with the building, it is perfectly acceptable to film the facades of buildings in New York State.
What is the relevance of this little tid-bit of information, you might ask... Well, let us say it like this. When that particular tour guide started to do those tours ca. 14 years ago, there were 4 TV shows actively shooting in NY, now there are 53 (!!!) shows. It brings a lot of work to the city, so it was a rather clever move to make by the mayor at the time and other US cities such as Boston are now trying to copy the concept.
Because of this, you actually see a lot of buildings in TV shows and movies, that were actually filmed or set elsewhere. As a consequence, we tried to keep up, but there were just so many locations, it was unbelievable. Just to name a few TV shows or movies that I actually remember: Men in Black, I am Legend, Ghostbusters I, II and 2016, Friends, Sleepless in Seattle, Kevin alone in New York, Two Broke Girls, How I Met Your Mother, White Collar, 30 Rock, When Harry Met Sally, Breakfast At Tiffany's, Sex & The City, Seinfeld, etc. etc.
Our tour guide was awesome and it seemed that she watched so much TV that she was able to recite every iconic scene of every TV show and movie. When passing by the "Original Soup Man" Place, which is said to be the inspiration for the Soup Nazi in the show Seinfeld, she actually recited the entire dialogue just for us. Well, she said, she worked also as an actress... Go figure ;)
If you cannot remember Seinfeld and the Soup Nazi, below is a youtube clip for you ;)
Of course, we came by a bunch of place, where we could take pictures as well. We'll show our image first and then you can try to guess in what move you have seen it. I will go chronologically, just to want you. Some of them are quite hard...
Shot #1
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| This one is admittedly quite very difficult. Can you guess? |
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| Will Smith lived here in a "I Am Legend" |
Shot #2
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| This is Arc is shown in a loooot of movies... Do you recognise it? |
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| Here in "When Harry Met Sally" |
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| Again, "I Am Legend" |
In addition, to the shots that I found, it was also used in "Person of Interest", "Glee" and the TV show "Elementary", just to name a few more.
Shot #3
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| This one is nigh on impossible, because of all the scaffolding, so I give you the solution right below |
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| That's right, boys and girls. If there's something strange, and it don't look good... Who d'you gonna call?!? |
Shot #4
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| This is a shot of the "Wedge Building". A famous landmark of New York (actually taken 2 days earlier from the Empire State Building)... Now where do you see that building in a movie? |
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| That's right! The Daily Bugle, Peter Parker's aka Spiderman's Employer has its head quarters in the Wedge Building :) |
Shot #5
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| This building was seen at least 24 times each year for 10 years in one of the most successful TV shows of all time... The owner is still annoyed that he did not see a single penny for it, because of New York legislature... |
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| It is the bulding that was supposed to host the appartments of "Friends" You see shots of the building from all angles over the course of a 10 year period. |
These were all the shots that we made, but please believe me when I say, there were many... many more possible ones. Apart from that we also learned that New Yorker enjoy abbreviations, such as Tribeca quarter, which is home to most celebrities living in New York. Because Broadway does not follow the grid system, it crosses streets and crossings at odd angles.
The name Tribeca is a result of that. It describes the TRIangle BElow CAnal street *facepalm*. The show How I met your Mother makes fun of that habit, by creating the imaginary neighbourhood "Dowisetrepla" (DOwnWInd of the SEwage TREatment PLAnt).
We finished the tour by having lunch at McGee's the pub that inspired McLaren's pub in How I Met Your Mother. The pub does not look anything like McLaren's in the TV show, but they have cocktail names inspired by episodes of the show, as you can see below.
The remainder of the day, Isi went shopping in NYC until we both were sick of Time Square and we let the day conclude with a beer in one of the bars in our Brooklyn neighbourhood.
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