Ah New York, is there any city more romantic? Well perhaps Paris, but when it comes to love stories of the silver screen it’s the Big Apple that so often sets the scene. And, in the spirit of Valentine’s Day, we’ve rounded up a few of the locations from Gotham’s greatest romance films so you and your leading guy or gal can act out your own passionate movie moment. BYO soaring violins and sultry sighs…
When it comes to quintessential rom-coms they don’t come more iconic than Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Hopefully you’ve already found your own George Peppard to passionately kiss in a rain-soaked side street – feline friend in hand, naturally – but, if not, you can always make like a solo Audrey in the opening shots. Don your finest pearls, grab a pastry and make for Tiffany’s Fifth Avenue flagship for a bite with some window shopping. We can’t guarantee it’ll spark a classic love saga, but hang around long enough and maybe some cashed-up José will appear to buy you a little blue boxed something.
In 1957’s An Affair to Remember a debonair Cary Grant proves there are few more romantic settings than the top of the view-tiful Empire State Building. Of course, the dashing playboy-painter was inadvertently stood up by Deborah Kerr, but hopefully you and your lover can act out the ardent reunion they never shared, just as Meg and Tom did a few decades later in Sleepless in Seattle.
NYC is as much the subject of love as the setting for it in Woody Allen’s paean to his hometown, Manhattan. The black and white comedy-drama is packed with iconic imagery of the city, with scenes shot everywhere from Riverview Terrace beneath the Queensboro Bridge to the Guggenheim Museum and MoMA’s Sculpture Gallery. And though, heartbreakingly, some of the featured locations – famed resto Elaine’s and the original Rizzoli’s Bookstore – have since shuttered, you can still visit ornate deco diner and ‘70s showbiz haunt The Russian Tea Room, where blinis and ‘beautiful women’ remain the order of the day.
Or, of course, you can ‘have what she’s having’ at Katz’s Delicatessen, the no-frills LES sandwich spot that served as backdrop for Meg Ryan’s hot and heavy performance in When Harry Met Sally. We have to admit, the corned beef and pastrami is pretty ‘gasmic indeed.
But, unsurprisingly, NYC’s most swoon-worthy setting lies at its very heart. As well as playing a part in most of the aforementioned, Central Park was where Jack Lemmon pined for Shirley MacLean in The Apartment (he can be seen sitting on the benches that run along West Drive near Columbia Circle) and, in 2001, John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale began their fortuitous affair in Serendipity as they glided around CP’s festively festooned Wollman ice rink.
Ready for your own Kodak moment? Grab your love for lights, camera, and…
