New York Tours visiting the Upper East Side
Explore New York City through its famous TV & movie locations!
Tours visiting the Upper East Side
Gossip Girl Sites Tour
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Central Park Walking Tour
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Classics TV & Movie Tour
What People are Saying
Customer Reviews“Very entertaining. Something for everyone from Gossip Girl to
Breakfast at Tiffanys”
- Family w/out children, International
“Great TV shows never die…On Location Tours takes TV and film buffs to the sites they've seen on screen.”
-Continental Airlines Magazine, Jan. 2008
New York City’s Upper East Side is the neighborhood situated between Central Park and the East River, from 59th to 96th Streets. Once known as the “Silk Stocking” district, the Upper East Side remains one of the most expensive residential neighborhoods in not only New York City, but the whole of the United States. Still farmland in the mid 1800’s, the Upper East Side’s transformation into a residential neighborhood began in the late 19th century. Wealthy families built luxury mansions and townhouses along Fifth Avenue overlooking Central Park, but stayed away from the dark and dirty Park Avenue, which was still consumed by the railroad trench. Once the train line was covered in 1910, however, Park Avenue became just as exclusive an address as Fifth Avenue. The first apartment building to replace a private mansion along Fifth Avenue was 907 Fifth Avenue, at 72nd Street, in 1916. The last remaining suburban villa in the neighborhood is Gracie Mansion, which became the home of New York City’s mayor in 1942.
Famous families who have spent generations on the Upper East Side include the Kennedys, the Rockefellers, the Roosevelts, the Whitneys, the Carnegies, the Astors and the Dukes.
The string of museums along Fifth Avenue is often referred to as “Museum Mile.” Museums included here are the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Museum of the City of New York, el Museo del Barrio, the Jewish Museum, and the International Center of Photography, among others.
Two On Location Tours visit the Upper East Side. For movie buffs and fans of Classic New York Movies, the New York TV and Movie Sites Classics Tour spends a large portion of its time on the Upper East Side. And younger TV fans can take our new Gossip Girl Sites Tour, which, like the show, is set in the heart of the Upper East Side.
On the Classics Tour, you’ll visit many famous (and infamous) film sites. We go to Holly Golightly’s (Audrey Hepburn) apartment building from Breakfast at Tiffany’s, where she meets and falls in love with Paul Varjak (George Peppard). We’ll see the elementary school from Kramer Vs. Kramer where Meryl Streep and Dustin Hoffman’s son attends school. We’ll sit at the bench overlooking the 59th Street Bridge that was used in Woody Allen’s iconic New York film Manhattan. Another very popular site included on the Classics Tour is the infamous subway grate where Marilyn Monroe’s dress blew up in The Seven Year Itch!
The Classics Tour also visits the Carnegie Mansion, which was where Dudley Moore’s grandmother lived in Arthur and where Melanie Griffith and Harrison Ford crashed a wedding in Working Girl. And you’ll see the office building where Diane Keaton worked in Baby Boom and where Bill Murray (an Upper East Side Resident himself) worked in Scrooged, and you’ll see Bloomingdale’s department store, where Robin Williams defected in Moscow on the Hudson and where Daryl Hannah learns to speak English in Splash!
Classic television fans will also get to see the “deluxe apartment in the sky” where George and Weezy “moved on up to the East Side” in The Jeffersons as well as the Park Avenue building where Felix and Oscar lived in the Odd Couple.
On Location Tours’ new Gossip Girl Tour also explores this very exclusive neighborhood. “Hello, Upper East Siders!” is Gossip Girl’s opening line to every episode and on the Gossip Girl Tour you’ll feel like she’s talking directly to you! Experience a day in the life as one of Manhattan’s elite.
What’s morning like in the Bass household? Begin the tour in the courtyard at the luxurious New York Palace Hotel, owned by Bass Industries on the show, where Chuck Bass and his “adopted” family, the van der Woodsens, wake up every morning to a fully catered breakfast from the Palace’s unparalleled service professionals. Ranked as one of the top 100 hotels in the world and celebrated for its luxurious accommodations, the New York Palace is an icon of Manhattan splendor.
Inside the Palace is not only the home of two of Gossip Girl’s elite families, but also the location of many a Gossip Girl intrigue. Gilt, the fine dining restaurant on the ground floor of the Palace, is where the Bass brunch took place, was the site of the first “reunion” of Serena and Blair after Serena’s mysterious disappearance and where Dan picks up Serena’s dropped cell phone, as well as where the lascivious Chuck tried to win Serena’s affection with a special-ordered grilled cheese sandwich with truffles.
And just like Chuck, Serena and Eric every school day, head up to the Constance Billard School for Girls and the St. Jude School for Boys. Both are located on the Upper East Side at a fictional address in the middle of the East River! But on the tour you’ll be visiting the locations where all the school scenes are shot.
Continue down Fifth Avenue towards Blair Waldorf’s apartment building. Located in the Carnegie Hill section of the Upper East Side, this handsome “pre-war” apartment house built in 1925 with private elevator landings in each apartment is considered one of Carnegie Hill’s finest. Apartments are listed here from $4million to $7million.
Around the corner from Blair’s is the other location used for Constance Billard/St. Jude’s, a landmark building known as the Baker Mansion (Baker was the Vice President of First National Bank, now CitiBank, and moved into the mansion in 1928, commissioning several wings be added to the original 1917 construction) and is currently owned by The Synod of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, to whom it was gifted in 1958. Only a block away is the real inspiration behind The Constance Billard School for Girls, The Nightingale-Bamford School. An elite Upper East Side school for girls, Nightingale is where Cecily von Ziegesar, the author of the Gossip Girl books on which the TV show is based, attended until her high school graduation (tuition at The Nightingale-Bamford School runs around $35,000/year).
And only 1 more block away is the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum, located in the former Andrew Carnegie Mansion, the site of the Bass/van der Woodsen wedding. And further down Museum Mile you will find the Metropolitan Museum of Art, on the steps of which sit many a “Queen B” lunch crew. In real life, these steps are often frequented by the girls from the Marymount School, another elite Upper East Side school for girls.
But the Upper East Side isn’t just about NYC’s elite homes and schools, it’s also about where many an Upper East Sider eats and shops! The Upper East Side is home to countless unforgettable restaurants. And high end designer boutiques abound along Madison Avenue in the Upper East Side.
Sette Mezzo is a simple Italian restaurant that caters to a number of financial- and social-elite families from the neighborhood where regulars include Martin Scorcese, Mike Nichols, George Soros, the Ferragamos, and the Lauders. Sette Mezzo does not take credit cards as most patrons have a “house account” or monthly tab and a typical meal for four can easily run upwards of $500. Other elite restaurants to check out on Manhattan’s Upper East Side include Daniel, Aureole, Le Cirque, Vico, Geisha and Café Bouloud; and for a less expensive yet very classy meal, check out Elio’s, Café D’Alsace, Sushi Seki, Donguri, Erminia and JoJo.
A stroll down Madison Avenue in Manhattan’s Upper East Side will bring you past such famous designer boutiques as Polo/Ralph Lauren (who also lives on the Upper East Side), Yves Saint Laurent Rive Gauche, Calvin Klein, Christian Louboutin, Dolce & Gabbana, Giorgio Armani, Jimmy Choo, Oscar de la Renta (who lives on the Upper East Side as well!), Roberto Cavalli, Valentino and Vera Wang. Upper East Side department stores include Bloomingdale’s, Henri Bendel, and the very high end Barney’s New York. Celebrity inhabitants of the Upper East Side have frequented these shops through the years, including Audrey Hepburn, Bill Murray, Brooke Shields, Diana Ross, Elizabeth Taylor, Francis Ford Coppola, Frank Sinatra, Jacqueline Kennedy, Marlene Dietrich, Naomi Campbell, Robert Redford and Sigourney Weaver.
Rich with history, New York City’s Upper East Side has served as backdrop for many television shows and movies. Among some of the productions filmed in Manhattan’s Upper East Side that On Location Tours do not cover include Manhattan Murder Mystery, Men in Black, 25th Hour, The Nanny Diaries, The Real Housewives of New York City and “The Nanny.” Come explore this fabulous NYC neighborhood with On Location Tours’ Classics Tour and Gossip Girl Tour!
* In an effort to stay current, we are constantly updating our tours with new locations and cannot guarantee the presence of locations mentioned on our site. If you have a particular interest in locations from a specific TV show or movie, please let your tour guide know and we will do our best to accomodate your request.
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On Location TV & Movie Tours
Or to purchase tickets by phone, call Zerve at (212) 209-3370.