Like Cosmo Kramer's hapless customers in "The Muffin Tops", you, too, can see with your own eyes the real-life locations in New York City, Southern California, and elsewhere that were featured on the television series Seinfeld.
Understand
[edit]| “ | GEORGE: I'm serious, I think that's a good idea!
JERRY: Just talking? What's the show about? GEORGE: It's about nothing! |
” |
—The Pitch | ||
Co-created by, named after, and starring stand-up comedian Jerry Seinfeld, Seinfeld ran for nine seasons and 180 episodes on the American television network NBC, premiering in 1990 and ending in 1998. Though its first seasons earned only modest ratings, the show was critically acclaimed throughout its run and, after being moved in 1992 to a coveted Thursday night timeslot directly after the long-running megahit Cheers, commercial success soon followed on a massive level. (Which is not to say that Seinfeld's success was solely due to Cheers; as Jerry put it later, "...we started beating them [in the ratings] coming on after them, which is just not done... [usually with] the second show you just try and not fall off too much.") By its fourth season in 1993-94, Seinfeld was one of the top three highest-rated shows on American television, which it would continue to be for the remainder of its run.
Conception, premise and cast
[edit]Ask any American to describe the premise of Seinfeld and they'll always come back to the same four words: "a show about nothing". That phrase or variations on it popped up in reviews of the show almost from the beginning, but at the outset, that was not what Seinfeld was meant to be. Instead, it was intended as a show that demonstrated how a stand-up comedian comes up with the material that they use in their act: in Jerry's case, picking apart the little trivialities and petty annoyances of daily life and mining the comedy out of them. It was an art form that Jerry and Seinfeld co-creator Larry David were both experts in, after years spent honing their craft on the New York comedy-club circuit in the '70s and '80s, and in Larry's case, also during a brief stint as a writer for Saturday Night Live. At that time, Manhattan was still an affordable place for the less-than-rich to live, and the stand-up scene was tight-knit and insular, centered around just a scant handful of comedy clubs: The Improv, The Comic Strip, Catch a Rising Star, and so forth. Onstage lineups on a given night drew from pretty much the same small clique of performers, and in that environment comics got to know one another, became friends, watched each other onstage, bounced ideas off each other offstage. In short, it was fertile ground for the observational humorist. Over time, Jerry's affable nature and accessible act brought him increasing success, with bookings on the Tonight Show and Late Night with David Letterman becoming more and more frequent as the '80s wore on, and even a small recurring role on the TV series Benson. Meanwhile, Larry was considered a "comic's comic": his fellow comedians howled with laughter whenever he was onstage, but his act was by and large too outré for mass audiences, and thus he was never really able to break out of the small-time club circuit the way Jerry did. His twisted and cynical sensibilities, though, were instrumental in the creation of Seinfeld: fans who are familiar with both comedians' work agree that the tone of the show bears far more resemblance to Larry's worldview than Jerry's.
It was in late 1988 when Jerry was contacted by NBC for a meeting with several of their executives, who'd been in attendance at a recent performance of his, liked what they saw, and were interested in working with him on a project for television. He enlisted his old friend Larry to help, and together they hatched the idea of a 90-minute special to be broadcast in Saturday Night Live's timeslot during one of its off weeks, wherein the camera would follow Jerry around as he went about a typical day in his life, with a finale featuring Jerry at a club performing a stand-up set inspired by the events of that day. Though of course that plan was later scrapped in favor of a half-hour weekly sitcom, Seinfeld still retained many elements of its original conception: the plotlines center around the daily life of a comedian, and each episode is bookended by scenes of Jerry onstage at a comedy club.
Once it was decided that a sitcom was the way to go, a premise had to be devised and characters designed. Jerry played an exaggerated version of himself, a cereal-eating, Superman-obsessed neat freak who served as a sort of "straight man" anchoring the wackiness around him. Meanwhile, the character of George Costanza (played by Jason Alexander) — Jerry's childhood friend; a duplicitous, stingy, frequently unemployed neurotic with a chip on his shoulder rivaled in size only by his inferiority complex — took his name from an old classmate of Jerry's at Queens College, but the persona is acknowledged to have been a fictionalized version of Larry. Finally, Michael Richards rounded out the original cast as Cosmo Kramer, Jerry's wild-haired, mooching, "hipster doofus" neighbor across the hall (modeled after Kenny Kramer, a former across-the-hall neighbor of Larry's) whose eccentric nature and penchant for harebrained schemes brought a touch of the absurd to the proceedings. Later, after the duo submitted their pilot to NBC executives for consideration, it was suggested that a female character be added to the cast, whence Elaine Benes, Jerry's ambitious, intelligent yet superficial ex-girlfriend whose portrayal by Julia Louis-Dreyfus was heralded as a high water mark for feminism on television: she was "one of the boys", yet also a strong female voice asserting herself unabashedly in relationships with men and speaking her mind openly about hot-button issues like abortion and contraception. Of course, as the series progressed, additional characters were added to the mix: George's parents (Frank and Estelle Costanza, played by Jerry Stiller and Estelle Harris respectively) and Jerry's (Morty and Helen Seinfeld, played by Barney Martin and Liz Sheridan); Jerry's cantankerous Uncle Leo (Len Lesser); Kramer's sniveling, diabolical postman friend Newman (Wayne Knight); George's ill-fated fiancée Susan Ross (Heidi Swedberg), Elaine's on-again-off-again boyfriend David Puddy (Patrick Warburton), obnoxious hack comic Kenny Bania (Steve Hytner), and many others.
|
Seinfeld and Jewish culture
In its earliest seasons, internal communications among network executives criticized Seinfeld for being "too New York, too Jewish" and expressed concern about how the show would play in the more white-bread regions of Middle America. Clearly the suits were dead wrong, and of course the same is true to some degree of all comedy in the U.S. — it wouldn't be too much of an exaggeration to say the Borscht Belt is to today's overall American comic sensibility what the blues is to rock 'n' roll; inescapably the ultimate progenitor, no matter how far afield and in how many different directions its successors have taken things. But the degree to which Seinfeld lives and breathes Yiddishkeit is indeed striking. For one thing, a huge number of the people responsible for the show are Jews themselves: Jerry Seinfeld (the real person and his TV alter ego) and Larry David both are, as is Jason Alexander (who described his character, despite the Italian surname, as "obviously Jewish"), as are many of the bigwigs on the show's writing staff, such as Larry Charles, Peter Mehlman, and Carol Leifer. And, together, they've created a world for their characters replete with things like marble ryes and chocolate babkas, indiscreet rabbis and incompetent mohels, and ever-present echoes of their comedy forebears. The witty repartee among the foursome are essentially modern-day vaudeville routines. Kramer's slapstick pratfalls crib from Jerry Lewis. In fact, in an essay he published for the book Coming Out Jewish: Constructing Ambivalent Identities, Jon Stratton makes a convincing case that the relationship between Jerry and George is nothing more than a modern reading of the schlemiel and schlimazel stock characters that have been archetypes of Jewish comedy since the Middle Ages. This intrinsic Jewishness is palpable not only when you watch the show, but also as you take this tour, and it's worth keeping on the lookout for. |
Legacy
[edit]Seinfeld was by leaps and bounds the most successful sitcom of the '90s, but that barely scratches the surface of the impact it had, and continues to have, on American pop culture. The show left its mark in numerous and diverse ways, from fashion (Kramer's vintage threads presaged the "thrift store chic" look that took the hipster world by storm a few years later), to event calendars (over two decades after the Season 9 episode "The Strike" was first broadcast, Festivus is on the cusp of becoming a bona fide holiday), to the very language spoken by Americans ("regifting", "shrinkage", and "yada yada yada" are but a few of the Seinfeld-derived words and phrases that retain their place in the popular lexicon). And that's not to mention its effect on consumer trends: Seinfeld is considered a pioneer in the practice of product placement on American television, with effects on such companies as Pez, which saw such a huge surge in sales after the episode "The Pez Dispenser" that it had to expand its candy factory in Connecticut to keep up with demand, and Fisher Pens, which still to this day sees an uptick in sales of its "AG7 Space Pen" — the model that Jack Klompus gifted to Jerry in Season 3 — every time the episode is rerun in syndication.
But leaving aside its impacts on the culture at large, Seinfeld was equally revolutionary within the realm of television. Up to the 1980s, most mainstream sitcoms were set in the suburban home of a nuclear family, building on tropes of marriage, childhood, and domestic life and with plotlines that all followed more or less the same pattern of setup, conflict and resolution. Seinfeld took a sledgehammer to these genre conventions, with main characters who lacked spouses, children, and in many cases steady employment, an unconventional structure of multiple plotlines intersecting with each other in unpredictable ways, an almost pathological aversion to anything resembling sentimentality or character growth, and a tone that parodied the nihilistic self-absorption of post-yuppie city life. In this, too, it proved influential: quite a few of the most popular sitcoms that came up in its wake revolved around casts of thirtysomething single people (Friends, Will & Grace, Sex and the City) or childless couples (Mad About You) living in New York City.
When to go
[edit]Now that we've covered the show itself, let's talk about logistics for this tour. New York City and Southern California together contain the bulk of the points of interest — and though their climates are quite different, the ideal times of year to visit are roughly the same in each case (luckily for any diehard Seinfeld fans hoping to hit up both cities on the same tour!) Midsummer is often uncomfortably hot and muggy in New York and is also prime time for Los Angeles' infamous "dirty smog", while winter brings, respectively, frigid temperatures and frequent rain. Spring and autumn are generally much better options. See New York City#Climate and Los Angeles#Climate for more in-depth information.
Get in
[edit]As mentioned above, the majority of the points of interest this tour covers are in the New York City area and Southern California, so the content of this and the following section will pertain to those places. For information about travelling to any of the outlying destinations listed, please see the "Get in" section of each respective city article.
New York and Los Angeles, it hardly needs to be said, are both world-class destinations, well-connected to the American Interstate highway and passenger rail networks, and with airports hosting direct flights from all corners of the world. For those hoping to find a flight into either one of those cities, there's very little to be said that wouldn't constitute advice from Captain Obvious. And for those Seinfeld superfans planning to visit both cities on this tour, it also hardly needs to be mentioned that there are dozens of nonstop flights a day between New York and Los Angeles, with airfare generally ranging between $300 and $500 round-trip.
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Getting to Manhattan from New York's three airports is a bit more complicated. If you're flying into JFK, the AirTrain is easy, quick, and cheap enough: $8 buys you a combination ticket that will take you from your terminal to Jamaica Station on the airport's own 24-hour people mover system, and then onward to Manhattan via the E, J, or Z subway service, a process that takes about an hour and a half total. If time is of the essence, a few additional dollars will buy you a ticket on the Long Island Rail Road from Jamaica direct to Penn Station, shaving about half an hour off your travel time. Newark Liberty also has an AirTrain, which dumps you off at Newark Liberty Rail Station with onward service to Manhattan via New Jersey Transit (50 minutes; $13 adult, $9 child/senior/disabled). If you're unlucky enough to be flying into LaGuardia Airport, there's no easy way to get to Manhattan on public transit; your easiest option is probably to take a taxi ($21-30 plus taxes and tips). Car rental is available from all three airports as well, not to say that New York is anywhere you want to be driving.
The practical realities of getting around L.A. (see below) mean you're probably going to need a car at your disposal. Rental facilities abound in and around the airport. If you absolutely insist otherwise, the Green Line of the Los Angeles Metro Rail can be accessed from LAX via a free shuttle bus from the terminal to Aviation/LAX Station. If you're headed to Downtown Los Angeles, a better idea is to skip the Metro Rail entirely and hop on the LAX FlyAway bus ($19.50 round trip for the 35-minute ride to Union Station; prices and travel times vary to other destinations).
Get around
[edit]One way in which New York and Los Angeles are extremely different are the preferred methods of getting around town. New York is one of the very few North American cities where having a car is more of an inconvenience than a convenience, but luckily the public transit system is extraordinarily extensive and well-developed. Even if you were to take this tour wholly using the New York City Subway system, the vast majority of the points of interest in the city would be easily accessible. You pay your fare using a MetroCard, sold at kiosks located in most stations; as of April 2019, a single ride costs $2.75, while weekly and monthly passes will set you back $33 and $127 respectively.
If human-powered transport is more your thing, NYC's network of protected on-street bike lanes grows more extensive each year, and there's no better way to take advantage of them than with the Citi Bike bike-sharing network. Kiosks are ubiquitous in Manhattan south of 130th Street, and are also present in Brooklyn (mostly points north of Prospect Park), in Long Island City and Astoria in Queens, and even across the river in Jersey City. A single 30-minute ride costs $3, but if you plan on doing the whole Seinfeld tour this way, by far a better option would be to spring for a $12 day pass.
Public transit is even doable for some of the further-flung points of interest outside New York, such as Amagansett Farmers Market or the Giants Stadium site, which are each an easy walking distance from, respectively, the Long Island Rail Road's Amagansett Station and New Jersey Transit's Meadowlands Rail Station. (Atlantic City is on New Jersey Transit's network too, but direct connections from Manhattan are by bus only, and the ride can take anywhere from two to four hours depending on traffic. Unless you're planning to make a day trip out of it — which, don't get us wrong, is a perfectly feasible and worthwhile thing to do if you're visiting New York — you'll probably need a rental car to see the place where Miss Rhode Island's trained doves met their untimely end.)
Meanwhile, on the other coast, Los Angeles' Metro Rail has come a long way in the past ten years or so, but it's still not (and probably never will be) anywhere near as easy to get by without a car there as in New York. Plus, most of the stops on the L.A. portion of the itinerary are a hassle to get to using transit. If you book ahead of time, renting a car from one of the onsite counters at LAX generally runs $80-100/day or $400-500/week plus taxes and fees, but if you can manage to get yourself to an offsite location (this is where the Metro Rail can come in handy), you can usually get a steep discount off those prices.
Filming locations and places featured on the show
[edit]New York City
[edit]| “ | JERRY: Oh, come on, there's a lot of people walking around the city that look like me.
KRAMER: Not as many as there used to be. |
” |
Manhattan
[edit]
Legend: Still open Closed Fictional Other, see listing
- 1 Tom's Restaurant, 2880 Broadway, Morningside Heights, ☏ +1 212 864-6137. Tu-Th 7AM-1PM, F-M 24 hours. Repurposed by the show as Monk's Cafe, the gang's favorite hangout. Outside the Seinfeld universe, it's best known as the setting for Suzanne Vega's 1987 hit song, "Tom's Diner".
- 1 211 W. 106th St., Manhattan Valley. Home of the eccentric J. Peterman, retail magnate and world traveller who was Elaine's boss in the last three seasons of the show. In the Season 8 episode "The Van Buren Boys", Elaine, tasked with ghostwriting Peterman's autobiography, interviews him here only to be frustrated by his boring stories ("We've covered all of [the intrigue and exotic romances] in the catalogue ad nauseam. No, I would like this book to be about my day-to-day life").
- 2 The Larchmont, 448 Central Park West, Manhattan Valley. Elaine lived here? Get out!
- 1 Metro Twin Cinema, 2626 Broadway, Manhattan Valley. Site of the double-date in Season 5 where Elaine and Jerry take their beaux to see The Age of Innocence, and Jerry's girlfriend "can't spare a square" of toilet paper for Elaine in the bathroom stall. Also where George impresses his new girlfriend in "The Opposite" by angrily shushing the loud movie-goers seated behind them, going so far as to threaten: "...we're gonna take it outside and I'm gonna show you what it's like!" Closed in 2002 and now vacant.
- 3 640 West End Avenue, Upper West Side. Home of Mr. Pitt, the eccentric, persnickety multimillionaire for whom Elaine works as a personal assistant for most of Season 6.
- 4 321 W. 90th St., Upper West Side. The building where George lived from the beginning of the series through Season 5, when he moved in with his parents. (After being hired by the Yankees and moving back out, the picture becomes muddied: according to the show, his new place was on 86th Street, but the exterior shots used in filming switched inconsistently between the original 90th St. location and another building on 16th St. in Chelsea, a full 70 blocks south of its supposed location!)
- 2 Mount Sinai Hospital, 1425 Madison Ave., East Harlem, ☏ +1 212 241-6500. Where Kramer and Mickey take turns hamming it up as actors portraying patients afflicted with various diseases, for the benefit of a class of medical students.
- 3 Loews Paragon Theater (now AMC 84th Street 6), 2310 Broadway, Upper West Side, ☏ +1 212 721-6023. Another of the gang's movie-house haunts, Loews is where Jerry catches his dry cleaner wearing his coat, where Kramer meets Uma Thurman, where Jerry and Kramer leave George behind to see Firestorm together, and where Elaine and her boyfriend see The English Patient, leading to the demise of their relationship.
- 4 Metropolitan Hospital Center, 1901 First Ave., East Harlem, ☏ +1 212 423-6262. Where witnessing the sponge bath of the beautiful patient in the room next door to his mother almost causes George to lose "The Contest"; where Elaine breaks her pre-ulcer test fast with delicious Drake's coffee cake in "The Suicide"; where George's supposed doppelgänger Neil is sent after burning his face on a crêpe in "The English Patient".
- 1 H&H Bagels, 2239 Broadway, Upper West Side. The bakery where Kramer worked until 1985, and briefly again in 1997 after calling off his twelve-year strike (a raise in the minimum wage had made his salary demands moot), was right on the southwest corner of 80th St. and Broadway. Though that location closed in 2012, H&H Midtown Bagels East continues to do business under different ownership at 1551 Second Ave. between 80th and 81st Sts.
- 5 Columbus Deli, 476 Columbus Ave., Upper West Side. Bodega with an illegal cockfighting ring in the back room, where Little Jerry Seinfeld, a rooster Kramer named in Jerry's honor, notched win after win against his hapless opponents. Still open as of December 2018 — stop in and see for yourself if Marcellino has taken Jerry's bounced check down from the wall of shame!
- 2 The Magic Pan, 432 Columbus Ave., Upper West Side. Izzy Mandelbaum was the franchisee of this location of the once-popular chain of crêperies, where Kramer put to work the "Cuban" cigar rollers (actually Dominicans) he'd hired for one of his get-rich-quick schemes. The chain folded shortly after the airing of that Season 8 episode, and the location is now an UNO Chicago Grill.
- 5 1125 Park Avenue, Carnegie Hill, ☏ +1 212 289-3699. The swanky high-rise condo tower that's home of Russell Dalrymple, the (fictional) president of NBC who worked with Jerry and George on their TV pilot throughout most of Season 4. It's here where, in "The Shoes", George stares a little too long at Dalrymple's young daughter's cleavage, infuriating her father and almost leading to the cancellation of the pilot. (As Jerry said: "Looking at cleavage is like looking at the sun. You don't stare at it; it's too risky. You get a sense of it and then you look away.")
- 3 Champagne Video, 2183 Broadway, Upper West Side. The video store where George bumps into Susan only to discover he's driven her to lesbianism, and where he later tries to rent Breakfast at Tiffany's in lieu of reading the novel for his book club. Also the workplace of the mysterious Vincent, whose taste in recommended videos makes Elaine fall in love sight unseen. Part of a now-defunct local chain, as of December 2018 this location is a vacant storefront for lease.
- 6 Central Park. The setting of many different happenings in the Seinfeld universe: Central Park is where Mr. and Mrs. Ross were taken by Kramer on a disastrous hansom cab ride with a flatulent horse, where George uses a line about manure to awkwardly flirt with a waitress from Monk's Cafe (and later with actress Marisa Tomei), where George injures Bette Midler during a charity softball game, and where Elaine's Trinidadian houseguest Jean-Paul Jean-Paul loses the New York City Marathon after burning himself on a cup of Kramer's hot coffee.
- 7 Tavern on the Green, ☏ +1 212 877-8684. M-Th 11AM-9PM, F 11AM-11PM, Sa 9AM-11PM, Su 9AM-9PM. George learns his girlfriend Allison is planning to break up with him, so he dodges her calls in order to force her to be his date to the party George Steinbrenner is throwing here for New York Yankees staff ("If she can't find me, she can't break up with me!") Foiled eventually, he takes Kramer as his "date" instead, who is thrown into the dining room after a scuffle in the lobby with the back torn out of his tuxedo, spoiling the "grand entrance" George had hoped to make with Allison.
- 8 Central Park Zoo, ☏ +1 212 439-6500. Daily 10AM-4:30PM. Where, during a behind-the-scenes tour, Kramer gets revenge on a mischievous banana peel-throwing chimp by throwing the peel back at him — only to be forced to apologize to the animal later. $9.95, children 3-12 $6.95, seniors 65 and over $7.95, children 2 and under free.
- 7 Tavern on the Green, ☏ +1 212 877-8684. M-Th 11AM-9PM, F 11AM-11PM, Sa 9AM-11PM, Su 9AM-9PM. George learns his girlfriend Allison is planning to break up with him, so he dodges her calls in order to force her to be his date to the party George Steinbrenner is throwing here for New York Yankees staff ("If she can't find me, she can't break up with me!") Foiled eventually, he takes Kramer as his "date" instead, who is thrown into the dining room after a scuffle in the lobby with the back torn out of his tuxedo, spoiling the "grand entrance" George had hoped to make with Allison.
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- 9 Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Ave., Upper East Side, ☏ +1 212 535-7710. Su-Th 10AM-5:30PM, F-Sa 10AM-9PM. In "The Raincoats", Elaine's "close talker" boyfriend arranged a behind-the-scenes tour for Jerry's parents who are in from out of town, where Helen took to Renoir's paintings of children and Morty came to the conclusion that Claude Monet must have been nearsighted. Later, the Met hosted a historical clothing exhibit (including "what Mary Todd wore to Lincoln's funeral") that Elaine attended with Susan, causing George's "worlds" to "collide". $25, seniors 65+ $17, students with valid ID $12, children 12 and under free.
- 4 Royale Pastry, 237 W. 72nd St., Upper West Side. Stood in for two different businesses during Seinfeld's run: Royal Bakery, which ran out of chocolate babkas at the worst possible time for Jerry and Elaine, and Schnitzer's, where Jerry physically fought an old woman for the last marble rye. Now closed and, ironically enough, home to a Jenny Craig weight-loss center.
- 5 Beau Brummel Sport, 287 Columbus Ave., Upper West Side. Where Jerry spends over $1,000 on a snazzy suede jacket to impress Elaine's intimidating father, only to be humiliated when it starts raining, forcing him to wear it inside-out with the pink candy-stripe lining showing. Now closed and home to a Super P supermarket.
- 2 Mendy's, 208 W. 70th St., Upper West Side. Kenny Bania's favorite restaurant (where Jerry was tricked into buying him dinner repeatedly) really exists, but it's not an upscale steak-and-seafood place as portrayed on the show: it's actually a chain of kosher delis. The Mendy's on W. 70th St. where Jerry and Kenny went is now closed, but if you want a meal like they had, head there anyway; it's now the renowned Lincoln Square Steak. Otherwise, head to one of five other locations throughout the city — the matzo ball soup is phenomenal, whether you consider it a full meal or not.
- 6 Melody Stationers, 1070 Madison Ave., Upper East Side. Where George bought the cheap envelopes that poisoned Susan, and to which he later returns to purchase (premium, super-glossy) invitations to a dinner party thrown by Jerry and his girlfriend. Closed, now a Johnny Was clothing store.
- 7 Fitzpatrick's, 1641 Second Ave., Yorkville. Where Keith Hernandez wines and dines Elaine in hopes of "reaching home plate", and — speaking of baseball — where George takes some visiting Houston Astros brass out to dinner on the advice of Mr. Wilhelm, and picks up a bad habit of cursing. Fitzpatrick's has been closed for some time, but if you're in search of a Seinfeld-inspired dinner of your own, the spot is now the upscale cocktail bar and restaurant known as The Daisy.
- 8 Ruby Nail Salon, 1183 Lexington Ave., Upper East Side. Korean-owned nail salon where Elaine enlists Frank to find out if the employees are taking advantage of the language barrier to gossip about her, only to rediscover Kim, his lost paramour whom he met during the Korean War. In real life, Ruby was the favorite nail salon of Carol Leifer, the writer behind the episode who, as of a 2014 interview on the Howard Stern Show, was still getting manicures on the house from the grateful owner for showing the exterior of her store on television. Sadly, Leifer's days of freebies are over: the space is now home to a men's barbershop.
- 9 Nilo Cleaners, 1173 Lexington Ave., Upper East Side. Where Jerry took his houndstooth jacket and his mother's fur coat in "The Secretary", only to run into the owner and his wife at the movies wearing them. Closed, now a clothing boutique.
- 10 Peter's, 182 Columbus Ave., Upper West Side. A fateful place in the life of George Costanza: it's here where his brief but illustrious hand modeling career began, where he lost out on a job opportunity due to "swishy" pants, and where Susan broke the news to him that her cousin had stolen his idea for an unusual baby name, "Seven". Closed in 2010, now home to a location of Rag & Bone clothing boutique.
- 11 Cineplex Odeon Regency, 1987 Broadway, Upper West Side. A favorite movie theater of the gang. This is where Newman catches Jerry making out with his girlfriend during a showing of Schindler's List, where Elaine stops at the concession stand for Jujyfruits on her way to the hospital to visit her injured boyfriend Jake Jarmel, where Jerry and Kramer get together to catch Plan 9 from Outer Space, and where George, to appease Susan, passes up the chance to see the aforementioned Firestorm in favor of The Muted Heart. Closed and demolished; now the site of an Apple Store.
- 10 Tiramisu, 1410 Third Ave., Upper East Side, ☏ +1 212 988-9780. M-Th noon-11PM, F-Sa 11AM-11:30PM, Su 11AM-11PM. Upscale Italian restaurant and brick-oven pizzeria where Jerry went on his first date with Gillian, a friend of Elaine's with "man hands".
- 11 La Boite en Bois, 75 W. 68th St., Upper West Side, ☏ +1 212 874-2705. Su-Th 11:30AM-10:30PM, F-Sa 11:30M-11PM. Fancy French restaurant that appears frequently in the show: it's where Jerry strains to avoid letting his parents find out he threw away the watch they gifted him (the same one Uncle Leo picked out of the garbage), where George strains to find out if his girlfriend "feel[ing] full after the risotto" is a metaphor for their sex life, where George's Latvian Orthodox girlfriend breaks up with him, and where Jerry discovers his girlfriend Gwen is a "two-face".
- 12 Metropolitan Opera House, 30 Lincoln Center Plaza, Upper West Side, ☏ +1 212 362-6000. Where Elaine attends a performance of Swan Lake with Robert, a gay man for whom she agrees to pose as a girlfriend to appease his homophobic boss, only to fall in love with him and try to get him to "switch teams".
- 12 O'Neal's, 49 W. 64th St., Upper West Side. Where, during dinner with Elaine, Kramer, and Kramer's "low talking" fashion designer girlfriend Leslie, Jerry inadvertently agrees to wear a "puffy shirt" designed by the latter to an appearance on the Today show. O'Neal's closed in 2010, but you can still get a good meal here: it's now the site of the Atlantic Grill, serving some of Manhattan's best seafood.
- 3 Catch a Rising Star, 1487 First Ave., Lenox Hill. Where Jerry is scheduled to perform in "The Movie", but misses his slot after a nightmarish taxi ride with fellow comedian Pat Buckles. The New York location of this chain of comedy clubs is now closed, and the building is a vacant storefront as of October 2017, but head to one of Catch a Rising Star's other locations in Princeton, New Jersey; Reno, Nevada; Providence, Rhode Island; or Monticello, New York and you might catch the next Jerry Seinfeld on the cusp of his or her fame.
- 13 McBurney School, 15 W. 63rd St., Upper West Side. Where Jerry's tomfoolery with a Pez dispenser causes Elaine to laugh all the way through George's girlfriend's piano recital. (This was actually a continuity error on the writers' part; the school closed down in 1988, four years before the episode aired.)
- 13 West Side YMCA, 5 W. 63rd St., Upper West Side, ☏ +1 212 912-2600. M-F 5AM-11PM, Sa 7AM-8PM, Su 8AM-8PM. In the men's locker room, Jerry meets his idol, former New York Mets player Keith Hernandez — who goes on to woo Elaine and get confronted by Kramer and Newman, who accuse him of spitting on them after a crucial game in the 1987 World Series.
- 14 Westbury Hotel, 15 E 69th St., Upper East Side. Scene of Jerry and George's awkward conversation with Elaine's intimidating novelist father, Alton Benes, in "The Jacket"; also the venue of the bachelor auction hosted by Elaine in "The Barber", which Jerry bowed out of in favor of Kramer (for whom the bidding started at $5). Closed in 1997, now condos.
- 14 St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center (now Mount Sinai West), 1000 Tenth Ave, ☏ +1 212 523-4000. Where Estelle convalesces after falling down in shock upon hearing a rumor that George is gay (not that there's anything wrong with that); where Kramer runs scared from the "pig-man" in room 1937 to the detriment of George's car; where Elaine's ex-boyfriend's touch-and-go surgery is a smashing success thanks to an errant Junior Mint.
- 15 Beach Cafe, 1326 Second Ave., Lenox Hill, ☏ +1 212 988-7299. M-Th 11:30AM-midnight, F 11:30AM-1AM, Sa 11AM-1AM, Su 11AM-11PM. Kramer's obnoxious mother Babs works as a restroom matron at this restaurant where George takes his possibly-bulimic model girlfriend Nina out to dinner in "The Switch".
- 16 Sotheby's, 1334 York Ave., Lenox Hill, ☏ +1 212 606-7000. Peterman sends Elaine here twice to bid on items for his collection of obscure memorabilia: first in "The Bottle Deposit" for a set of golf clubs that belonged to John F. Kennedy; later in "The Frogger" for a slice of cake from Edward VIII's wedding to Wallis Simpson.
- 15 Mickey Mantle's, 42 Central Park South, Garment District. Kramer pays the former New York Yankee himself a visit here in Season 4 to apologize for punching him in the mouth during a brawl at baseball fantasy camp, only to get (literally) thrown out of the restaurant by security. Mickey Mantle's closed in 2012, 17 years after the death of its namesake, and is now the site of a spray tanning salon.
- 17 JoJo, 160 E. 64th St., Lenox Hill, ☏ +1 212 223-5656. Lunch: M-F noon-2:30PM, Sa-Su 11AM-3PM; dinner M-Th 5:30PM-10:30PM, F-Sa 5:30PM-11PM, Su 5:30PM-10PM. Fancy restaurant where Elaine and Peterman hit it off over their mutual love of fine couture in "The Understudy".
- 18 Barneys, 660 Madison Ave., Upper East Side, ☏ +1 212 826-8900. M-Tu 10AM-8PM, W-Sa 10AM-9PM, Su 11AM-8PM. Home of the "skinny mirrors" that fool Elaine into buying a dress that doesn't quite look the same when she gets home; also where Kramer gets stuck in a fitting room in his underwear after selling the clothes off his back to Kenny Bania and where George charges a sable fur hat to the Peterman expense account.
- 19 Plaza Hotel, 768 Fifth Ave., Garment District, ☏ +1 212 759-3000. Elaine reluctantly gives up her free suite here (given to her after lying that she was in from out of town on a job interview) to Jerry's parents, who really are in from out of town — and after they trash the room and ring up hundreds of dollars worth of extra charges, she's stuck with the bill!
- 20 New York Hospital — Cornell Medical Center (now NewYork-Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center), 525 E. 68th St., Lenox Hill, ☏ +1 212 746-5454. Where Kramer visits the ailing Poppie bearing gifts of chili and wine in "The Couch" and scores a primo parking space thanks to his "ASSMAN" vanity license plate in "The Fusilli Jerry"; where Bette Midler convalesces after her injury on the softball diamond in "The Understudy"; where George's reaction to Susan's death is one of "repressed jubilation" (in "The Invitations") and later recovers from his own injuries that put "The Summer of George" on ice.
- 21 Pasteur Pharmacy, 806 Lexington Ave., Lenox Hill, ☏ +1 212 838-2500. M-F 8AM-7:30PM, Sa 10AM-5:30PM. Where Elaine bargains hard for the last case of recently-recalled Today contraceptive sponges in the city. Still open as of December 2018, and "The Sponge" is back on the market, so buy as many as you want.
- 6 Manhattan East Medical Offices, 225 E. 64th St., Lenox Hill. Home of Dr. Tim Whatley's dental office, as well as the office of the proctologist whom Frank consults to remove "The Fusilli Jerry" from his nether regions.
- 16 Symphony Café, 238 W. 56th St., Midtown. Over dinner here, Elaine sympathizes with her friend Cynthia over her inability to find the right man — later hitting on the idea of hooking her up with George. Closed; now the home of Fuji Sushi.
- 22 Soup Kitchen International (now The Original Soupman), 259A W. 55th St., Hell's Kitchen, ☏ +1 212 956-0900. M-Sa 11AM-8PM, Su 11AM-7PM. "The Soup Nazi" was a real-life person, Ali Yeganeh — and by all accounts, the experience at his restaurant was more or less exactly how it was depicted in the Season 7 episode of the same name. Yeganeh has always resented the fame (or notoriety) that his portrayal on Seinfeld brought him, but after the original restaurant closed in 2004, he somewhat reluctantly parlayed it to relaunch his business as a chain that now counts four locations across the Northeast (including the original).
- 23 Trattoria dell'Arte, 900 Seventh Ave., Midtown, ☏ +1 212 245-9800. M-Sa 11:45AM-midnight, Su 11AM-10:30PM. Over dinner here, Jerry sympathizes with George over his inability to find the right woman — later hitting on the idea of hooking her up with Cynthia, a friend of Elaine's.
- 24 Virginia Theatre (now the August Wilson Theatre), 245 W. 52nd St., Theater District, ☏ +1 212 239-6200. Shortly after a whirlwind visit to the Met, Elaine's "close talker" boyfriend takes her and Jerry's parents here to see a production of My Fair Lady — much to Elaine's annoyance.
- 7 1325 Avenue of the Americas, Midtown, ☏ +1 212 237-3156. Fictional headquarters of the J. Peterman Catalog, where Elaine worked for the three final seasons of the show.
- 8 600 Madison Avenue, Midtown East. Home of the fictional Pendant Publishing, where Elaine worked as a copy editor from the second through the fifth season (and George too, for one disastrous third-season episode).
- 25 Manhattan Mini Storage, 543 W. 43rd St., Hell's Kitchen, ☏ +1 646 786-7210. Daily 7AM-10PM. Where, much to his chagrin, Jerry discovers that Kramer is letting Newman illegally store undelivered mail in Jerry's storage unit.
- 26 New York Friars Club, 57 E. 55th St., Midtown East, ☏ +1 212 751-7272. If you're lucky enough to be invited to dinner here, don't forget your jacket — or at least don't lose the one they give you at the door. Jerry did just that in Season 7, and it cost him membership in the club!
- 27 Bruno, 240 E. 58th St., Midtown East, ☏ +1 212 688-4190. Su-Tu 5PM-10PM, W-Sa 5PM-11PM. Site of Kramer and Mickey's double date in "The Yada Yada", where they couldn't decide which girl was right for which guy. Still in business, but under a new name: Club A Steakhouse.
- 28 Radio City Music Hall, 1260 Avenue of the Americas, Theater District, ☏ +1 212 465-6741. Site of the 1997 Tony Awards, where Jerry takes his girlfriend Lanette on a date, and Kramer works as a seat filler (and somehow manages to win an award for his "performance" in the fictional musical Scarsdale Surprise).
- 29 St. Luke's Lutheran Church, 308 W. 46th St., Hell's Kitchen, ☏ +1 212 246-3540. Stand-in for the unnamed Catholic church where Jerry, frustrated with the Jewish jokes told by recent convert Tim Whatley, sidles into a confessional to tattle on him to a priest for also telling a joke about the Pope and Raquel Welch.
- 30 Hotel Edison, 228 W. 47th St., Theater District, ☏ +1 212 840-5000. Where George is stripped to his underwear, handcuffed to the bed, and robbed blind by a beautiful woman who seduced him on "The Subway" — and he misses his job interview, too!
- 31 Manhattan Plaza Racquet Club, 450 W. 43rd St., Hell's Kitchen, ☏ +1 212 594-0554. M-Sa 6AM-midnight, Su 7AM-midnight. The setting of a pair of mishaps involving Elaine: in Season 3, she eliminates herself from "The Contest" after John F. Kennedy Jr. joins her aerobics class; in Season 6, she loans Mr. Pitt's tennis racket to a representative of Doubleday Publishing in hopes of landing a new job.
- 4 The Improv, 358 W. 44th St., Hell's Kitchen. The comedy club where Jerry delivered all the stand-up bits that opened and closed each episode of the first seven seasons — even after 1992, when the real-life one closed. If you want to catch a comedy show, The Improv is now a chain with locations in twenty cities nationwide (prominently excluding New York); if you'd rather delve deeper into Seinfeldiana, the old location is now home to the Producers Club Theater, starting point for the famous Kenny Kramer's Reality Tour (which, in turn, was parodied in Seinfeld's Season 8 episode "The Muffin Tops" — is your head spinning yet?)
- 17 Guild 50th Street Theatre, 33 W. 50th St., Theater District. Movie theater where Jerry was forced at gunpoint by a friend of Kramer's to film an illegal bootleg of Death Blow with a concealed camcorder, where Elaine loudly declared her hatred for The English Patient in front of Mr. Peterman, and where Kramer unsuccessfully tried to go to the bathroom during a bout of constipation. Now home to an Anthropologie clothing store (but the old marquee is still in front of the entrance!)
- 32 Sutton East Tennis Club, 488 E. 60th St., Lenox Hill, ☏ +1 212 751-3452. Daily 7AM-11PM. Where horrible tennis player Miloš offers Jerry a date with his wife as compensation for deceptively selling him an expensive racquet, and where Kramer is put into a coma after repeatedly getting hit with tennis balls.
- 33 Beckett Theatre, 410 W. 42nd St., Hell's Kitchen, ☏ +1 212 714-2442. The tiny Off-Broadway playhouse, part of Theatre Row, that ran Jerry Seinfeld Is the Devil, a one-woman show written and performed by Susan's old roommate Sally Weaver, who claims Jerry has ruined her life.
- 34 New York Marriott Marquis, 1535 Broadway, Theater District, ☏ +1 212 398-1900. The venue for the Able Mentally Challenged Adults benefit — where Kramer, whose slurred speech after a novocaine injection at the dentist led him to be mistaken for developmentally disabled, was the guest of honor — is also the place where Jerry's attempts to woo Miss Rhode Island (who was staying in Room 417) were constantly frustrated by her chaperone, Kramer, and where Mr. Lippman's press conference for Jake Jarmel's new book went awry.
- 35 Majestic Theatre, 245 W. 44th St., Theater District, ☏ +1 212 239-6200. In Season 7, Kramer got a personal behind-the-scenes tour of the Majestic's production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat courtesy of Ethan, a friend of Susan's who was "The Wig Master" for the troupe.
- 36 Sardi's, 234 W. 44th St., Theater District, ☏ +1 212 221-8440. Tu-Sa 11:30AM-11PM, Su noon-7PM. Where Kramer, at the Tony Awards afterparty fresh off his "win" for the fictional Scarsdale Surprise, is given an ultimatum by the musical's director: he can keep the statuette, but he has to be the one to fire the notoriously hotheaded Raquel Welch from the performance.
- 18 Brentano's, 597 Fifth Ave., Midtown East. "The Bookstore" where Uncle Leo is caught shoplifting, and where George is forced to buy a book he doesn't want (and can't get rid of, as it's been "flagged") after taking it to read in the men's room. (This was another continuity error on the writers' part: this location of Brentano's had already been closed for two years by the time the episode aired in 1998. The space is now a Lululemon clothing store.)
- 37 The Town Hall, 123 W. 43rd St., Theater District, ☏ +1 212 997-6661. Theater where the titular performance of Pagliacci in "The Opera" was staged, to which all four have tickets for opening night. Jerry helps Elaine dodge her boyfriend/stalker, "Crazy" Joe Davola, while George and Kramer try to scalp their tickets.
- 9 The Hippodrome, 1120 Avenue of the Americas, Midtown East, ☏ +1 212 626-6996. Where Jackie Chiles, superlawyer extraordinaire who bears more than a passing resemblance to a certain member of O.J. Simpson's "Dream Team", kept his office.
- 19 Zohra Fabrics, 256 W. 39th St., Garment District. Workplace of Ricky, the creepy guy who was infatuated with Elaine after meeting her on the subway: he's a mannequin designer, and his new bestselling model is a dead ringer for Elaine. Closed, now the site of a different fabric wholesaler.
- 38 New York Public Library Main Branch, 476 Fifth Ave., Midtown South, ☏ +1 917 275-6975. M & Th-Sa 10AM-6PM, Tu-W 10AM-8PM. Where Jerry meets Lieutenant Joe Bookman, an ironically named "library cop" who dresses him down for checking out Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer in 1971 and never returning it — and where Kramer meets Marion, a librarian with whom he kindles a forbidden love affair.
- 20 Off-Track Betting, 714 Third Ave., Turtle Bay. After overhearing a horse racing tip on "The Subway", Kramer hurries into this betting parlor and wins $18,000 on a long-shot wager. The location is now a Wendy's.
- 10 Commerce Building, 708 Third Ave., Turtle Bay. Fictional rest-stop supply company Sanalac, headquartered here, would love to offer George a job. But, of course...
- 11 101 Park Avenue, Murray Hill, ☏ +1 212 808-7000. Kruger Industrial Smoothing — George's incompetent employer for most of the final season, who "botched the Statue of Liberty job" ("they couldn't get the green stuff off") — was headquartered here.
- 39 Madison Square Garden, 4 Pennsylvania Plaza, Chelsea, ☏ +1 212 465-6741. Aside from all the events the gang attended there — Jerry and his girlfriend Winona in floor seats for a Knicks game in "The Cigar Store Indian"; Jerry, Kramer, Elaine, and Puddy at a hockey game in "The Face Painter"; Jerry, his girlfriend Katya, and Kramer at the circus in "The Gymnast", not to mention the time Kramer got kicked out a Knicks game for throwing a hot dog at Reggie Miller — Madison Square Garden was also the setting for much of "The Limo", where Jerry and George accept a ride from a car service that was meant for someone else, namely a neo-Nazi leader headed to a rally.
- 21 Collectors Universe, 124 E. 40th St., Murray Hill. Collectibles shop to whom Kramer sells, for $200, a birthday card signed by the whole New York Yankees roster, with "The Wink" signifying George's permission — or so he thought. Closed, now a hair salon.
- 5 Catch a Rising Star (second location), 253 W. 28th St., Chelsea. Where, at an NBC showcase, Jerry intentionally bombs on stage to keep Kenny Bania, who's on next, from riding his coattails ("He only does well when he has me for a lead-in. He's a time-slot hit.") Catch a Rising Star moved here from the above location in the late 1990s, but as mentioned, it's now closed. This location is now home to an electronics store.
- 22 Hunan Fifth Avenue, 323 Fifth Ave., Midtown South. "The Chinese Restaurant" where the gang waited... and waited... and waited for a table. The experience must not have put them off the place too much, though, as they would return to it several times over the course of the series: it's where George discovers Jerry's new deaf girlfriend can read lips in "The Lip Reader", the venue for Jerry and George's double date in "The Masseuse", and where George shares an awkward dinner with Mr. Peterman in "The Secret Code". Closed in 2007, now a bank.
- 6 Downtown Veterinary Clinic, 148 Ninth Ave., Chelsea. "I'll take a vet over an M.D. any day. They've got to be able to cure a lizard, a chicken, a pig, a frog — all on the same day." In "The Andrea Doria", true to his words, Kramer finds a dog with the same cough he has and gets a vet from this office to prescribe medication. Later the site of the emergency surgery that saves the life of the squirrel George hit with his car in "The Merv Griffin Show". The clinic moved up the street to 244 Ninth Ave.; this former location is vacant and for lease.
- 40 Masonic Hall NYC, 71 W. 23rd St., Flatiron District, ☏ +1 212 741-4520. M-F 9AM-5PM. Stood in for the Knights of Columbus hall that hosted Kramer's Jewish Singles Night, where Frank put his cooking skills to use for the first time since sickening his entire squadron with spoiled meat during the Korean War.
- 41 New York Police Department — 10th Precinct, 230 W. 20th St., Chelsea, ☏ +1 212 741-8211. Where Kramer finds a way to earn quick money by standing in police lineups only to get falsely recognized as a jewelry store thief; where Frank comes to bail out George after his arrest for bootlegging Cry, Cry Again and ends up challenging Elaine to a fight ("You sayin' you want a piece of me?")
- 42 Peter McManus Cafe, 152 Seventh Ave., Chelsea, ☏ +1 212 929-6196. M-Sa 11AM-4AM, Su noon-4AM. After Elaine's plot to seduce Russell Dalrymple (to get George and Jerry back in his good graces) is a little too successful, this is the place where she lets him down easy. Or tries, anyway — he ends up quitting his job at NBC and joining Greenpeace to prove his worth as a man.
- 23 Camouflage Clothing, 139 Eighth Ave., Chelsea. Stand-in for Ross's, a discount clothing store owned by a relative of Susan's where George takes pity on a security guard with no chair to sit in. Closed in 2014, now a Caffé Bene coffeeshop.
- 43 Old Homestead Steakhouse, 56 Ninth Ave., Chelsea, ☏ +1 212 242-9040. M-Th noon-10:45PM, F noon-11:45PM, Sa 1PM-11:45PM, Su 1PM-9:45PM. One of the oldest continually operating restaurants in New York, where, on a date with Elaine's cousin Holly, Jerry's manhood is called into question when he orders "just a salad".
- 24 Bolo, 23 E. 22nd St., Flatiron District. Chef Bobby Flay's Spanish tapas house was the scene of three vexing dinners for the Seinfeld gang: one where Kramer chaperoned Miss Rhode Island's date with Jerry, to the latter's annoyance, and secured a job as her personal coach; one where George takes his cousin Rhisa on a date to get back at his parents for "cutting him loose", and Jerry's second date with Christie, who always seems to wear the same outfit ("What in God's name is going on here? Is she wearing the same thing over and over again, or does she have a closet full of these, like Superman?"). Closed in 2008 and demolished, with luxury condos occupying the site now.
- 25 Thomasville Furniture, 91 Seventh Ave., Chelsea. Where Jerry buys "The Couch" that Poppie ends up peeing on. Closed, but if you were hoping to take this opportunity to make like Jerry and upgrade your living room, you're in luck: the building is now the Chelsea branch showroom of Jensen-Lewis Furniture.
- 44 Pete's Tavern, 129 E. 18th St., Gramercy, ☏ +1 212 473-7676. Su-W 11AM-2:30AM, Th 11AM-3AM, F-Sa 11AM-4AM. "The Tavern O. Henry Made Famous" is also the tavern where Kramer stakes out "The Sniffing Accountant" — Jerry's, whose constant habit makes Kramer suspect he's a cocaine addict.
- 26 Surgical Appliances, 44 Union Square East. Medical supply shop where George and Kramer go to pick up a new wheelchair for Lola, a handicapped woman that the latter has fallen in love with. As is George's wont, they picked the cheapest model possible, with predictably disastrous results. Closed, now a plumbing and heating contractor.
- 45 Alvin Johnson/J.M. Kaplan Hall, New School for Social Research, 66 W. 12th St., Greenwich Village. Site of the art class in "The Doodle" attended by Elaine and Paula, George's girlfriend, whose unflattering caricature of him leaves George vexed.
- 46 New York Health and Racquet Club, 24 E. 13th St., Greenwich Village, ☏ +1 212 924-4600. M-F 6AM-11PM, Sa-Su 8AM-9PM. Jerry and George's favorite health club, where the latter is caught peeing in the shower in "The Wife", and the former, curious to know if his girlfriend has breast implants, enlists Elaine to get in the sauna with her and "do a little investigative journalism".
- 47 NYU Hospital for Joint Diseases (now NYU Langone Orthopedic Hospital), 301 E. 17th St., Gramercy, ☏ +1 212 598-6000. The scene of the alleged theft of Morty's wallet, who was in from out of town to see a specialist for his bad back.
- 27 Bradley's, 70 University Place, Greenwich Village. Old jazz club where Elaine's saxophonist boyfriend bombs onstage with a rendition of "Hot and Heavy", a song he wrote for her. Closed in 1996, only a few months after the episode aired. Now a bar with an entirely different clientele: Reservoir, catering to football fans from nearby NYU.
- 12 24 Fifth Avenue, Greenwich Village. The elegant apartment of Mr. and Mrs. Ross, Susan's parents, and location of the many interminable Susan Ross Foundation meetings George is forced to sit through in Seasons 8 and 9.
- 28 Bowen Fertility Clinic, 320 E. 15th St., Gramercy. Where the results of Kramer's fertility test inspire him to switch from briefs to boxers, and finally to no underwear at all. Closed; now a student residence hall for The New School.
- 48 Sunshine Cleaners, 51 University Place #3, Greenwich Village, ☏ +1 212 777-0896. M-F 7AM-7PM, Sa 8AM-5PM. Where Jerry's girlfriend Meryl poses as "The Wife" to save money on dry cleaning. Still open as of December 2018, but no word on whether the 25% family discount policy is still in effect!
- 49 Cooper Station Post Office, 93 Fourth Ave., East Village, ☏ +1 212 254-1390. M-F 9AM-5:45PM, Sa 9AM-3:45PM. The Seinfeld writers' favorite place to have characters get interrogated under hot lights: first Kramer in "The Junk Mail", who has the audacity to want to stop receiving mail altogether, then Jerry, for attempted mail fraud in "The Package", and finally George, who's accused of participating in "some ill-conceived mail-order pornography ring.".
- 29 Pó, 31 Cornelia St., Greenwich Village. Where, in a desperate attempt to prove to his girlfriend Janet that he likes her for more than just her looks, George strains to find any conceivable reason for them to be together — and the best he can come up with is their shared love of chewing gum. The restaurant once co-owned by celebrity chef Mario Batali closed in 2017, but if you're hungry for Indian food, check out its successor, the West Village branch location of The Drunken Munkey.
- 50 Joe's Pizza, 7 Carmine St., Greenwich Village, ☏ +1 212 366-1182. Su-Th 10AM-4AM, F-Sa 10AM-5AM. Stand-in for Paisano's Pizza, which the show's scripts indicate to be in the Bronx, but whose exterior shots are of this longstanding Greenwich Village institution. In Season 7, Paisano's/Joe's is the baker of George Steinbrenner's favorite calzones — and of Kramer's clothes, too, after he gets addicted to that "hot from the dryer" feeling.
- 30 Bleecker Bob's, 118 W. 3rd St., Greenwich Village. This legendary record shop was the Seinfeld stand-in for Ron's Records, where Kramer and Newman flatly refused the owner's offer of five dollars for a box of records Jerry took from the apartment of Sid, "The Old Man" for whom he'd signed up to do volunteer work. ("'Take it or leave it'? We got Al Jolson here. Al Jolson!") Closed in 2013, now a sushi restaurant.
- 31 Flash Foto, 31 Carmine St., Greenwich Village. After George discovers himself in the background of a photo his new boss, Mr. Kruger, took with his family at the beach, he absconds out of his office with it and takes it here to have his image airbrushed out — with disastrous results. Closed, now a restaurant.
- 51 Iggy's Pizzeria, 173 First Ave., East Village, ☏ +1 212 353-3331. Daily 11AM-11PM. Stand-in for Mario's Pizza, Jerry and George's old high-school hangout where the latter's high score on "The Frogger" machine still stood all those years later. Jerry and George's visit to Mario's was on the cusp of its closure, but its counterpart Iggy's is still in business as of December 2018 — for anyone who wants to recreate George's daring traverse of First Avenue, you'll be disappointed to know their arcade machines are probably not for sale.
- 32 Ricky Pharmacy, 720 Broadway, East Village. Fed up with his constipation in "The Pilot", Kramer finally stops in here to pick up "the dreaded apparatus". Now closed and vacant.
- 33 Da Silvano, 260 Sixth Ave., Greenwich Village. Venue of Ellen's birthday dinner with Jerry in "The Van Buren Boys", which aggravates Jerry's suspicion that she may be "a loser": why is she not out celebrating with her friends on her birthday? Closed in 2016, now vacant.
- 34 Rudy's Antique Boutique, 714 Broadway, East Village. The vintage shop to whom Kramer sells a bunch of old clothes: a parcel of "Executives", a beltless trenchcoat invented by Morty Seinfeld in the 1960s, and a trunk of Frank Constanza's moth-infested "cabana wear". Later on a tag from Rudy's, torn out of Kramer's shirt, served as the crucial evidence leading to his arrest for dognapping in "The Engagement". Closed sometime between 2005 and 2011, now a vacant storefront.
- 52 Paradise Twin Theater (now IATI Theater), 64 E. 4th St., East Village, ☏ +1 212 505-6757. In "The Movie", the gang head to this downtown movie house to catch CheckMate, but — stuck at the end of a long, slow line — they give up and end up seeing Rochelle, Rochelle ("a young woman's strange, erotic journey from Milan to Minsk").
- 35 Gladiator's Gym, 503 E. 6th St., East Village. Where Izzy Mandelbaum, an acquaintance of Morty and Helen's, takes Jerry "aboard the pain train" as his trash-talking personal trainer. Long closed, the site now handles "doughboys" of a different type as Carma East, a dim sum restaurant.
- 36 Country Cafe, 69 Thompson St., SoHo. "You call yourself a lifesaver; I call you Pimple Popper, M.D.!" Site of Jerry's "revenge date" with Sara, a dermatologist who, on an earlier date, had made Jerry feel "like if [he doesn't] save lives, [he's] worthless". Country Cafe closed in 2010, but the current occupant of the space — classy French bistro Vin et Fleurs — is still a great choice for all your revenge-dating needs.
- 53 New York State Department of Labor, 75 Varick St., SoHo, ☏ +1 212 775-3584. M-F 8:30AM-5PM. Where George offers to take his unemployment officer's unattractive daughter on a date to avoid getting his benefits cut off, only to get dumped at the end. ("You've got no job, you've got no prospects. You're like Biff Loman.")
- 54 FDNY Hook & Ladder Company 8, 14 N. Moore St., TriBeCa. In "The Secret Code", Kramer stops by to share his favorite shortcuts through Greenwich Village and the West Side, only to demonstrate his knowledge of the street grid firsthand behind the wheel of a fire truck en route to a burning building. Outside the Seinfeld universe, Hook & Ladder No. 8 is best known as the Ghostbusters' firehouse headquarters.
- 55 Manhattan Criminal Court, 100 Centre St., Civic Center, ☏ +1 646 386-4500. M-F 9AM-5PM. Where Newman's attempt to talk his way out of a traffic ticket is derailed by Kramer, who's still reeling from the concussion "Crazy" Joe Davola gave him in "The Pitch", and where Jackie Chiles cribs from Johnnie Cochran's "if the glove doesn't fit" defense in "The Caddy", with disastrous results for Kramer's lawsuit against the "braless wonder", Sue Ellen Mischke.
- 56 Louis J. Lefkowitz State Office Building, 80 Centre St., Civic Center, ☏ +1 212 669-8090. M-F 8:30AM-3:45PM. Elaine heads here in "The Pilot" to file an "equal employment opportunity" complaint against Monk's Cafe for only hiring large-breasted waitresses (still another continuity error; the EEOC is a federal agency and thus the complaint would not have been heard at the state level); also where Kramer picked up his "ASSMAN" vanity license plates in "The Fusilli Jerry". The Lefkowitz Building is now home to the New York City Marriage Licensing Bureau, and under threat of demolition.
Outer boroughs
[edit]
- 13 22–37 37th St., Astoria, Queens. Home of the neurotic, bickering Frank and Estelle Costanza — and their son George too, for most of season 5.
- 14 329 Union St., Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn. The apartment of Mr. Peterman's ailing mother, to whom George entrusts the secret of his ATM code.
- 57 Arthur Ashe Stadium, Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, Queens, ☏ +1 718 760-6200. Site of the US Open tennis tournament, where Jerry becomes infatuated with a deaf lineswoman, George is shown on TV at the concession stand with ice cream all over his face, and Kramer injures Monica Seles in her big comeback match while working as a "ball boy".
- 58 D'Amico Fresh Roasted Coffee, 309 Court St., Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, ☏ +1 718 875-5403. M-F 7AM-7PM, Sa 7AM-6PM, Su 9AM-3PM. Where Elaine buys George a bag of expensive coffee, which he misinterprets as "stickin' it to [him] that she makes more money than [him]".
- 59 Edward R. Murrow High School, 1600 Avenue L, Midwood, Brooklyn, ☏ +1 718 258-9283. The real Jerry Seinfeld attended Massapequa High School on Long Island, but apparently TV Jerry was a graduate of this school where he returns in Season 9 to do a presentation on Career Day, only to get "bumped" by a fire drill.
- 60 John F. Kennedy International Airport, ☏ +1 718 244-4444. Where, while waiting to pick up Jerry from a flight coming in from St. Louis, George taunts a convict under police escort and Kramer confronts an old acquaintance who borrowed money from him 20 years ago and never repaid it — both with disastrous results.
- 61 LaGuardia Airport, LaGuardia Rd. and 94th St., East Elmhurst, Queens, ☏ +1 718 533-3400. Site of the Diplomat's Club, where Kramer won and then lost thousands of dollars betting on the arrival times of incoming flights (at one point putting up David Berkowitz's mail bag, a keepsake of Newman's, as collateral).
- 62 Queensboro Plaza Station, 27th St. and Queens Plaza, Long Island City, Queens. Supposedly the home of the best gyros in the New York City subway system — the tzatziki sauce from which stained one of the issues of Frank Costanza's beloved TV Guide magazine collection.
- 63 Rockaway Beach, Queens. An ersatz driving range for Kramer, and the site of "marine biologist" George's daring rescue of a beached whale. "The sea was angry that day, my friends..."
- 64 Russian Orthodox Cathedral of the Transfiguration of Our Lord, 228 N. 12th St., Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Stand-in for the Latvian Orthodox church where George attempts to convert to win back a woman who left him, and Kramer discovers his kavorka, almost tempting a clergywoman into giving up her faith.
- 65 Visiting Nurses Association of Brooklyn, 15 Metrotech Center, Downtown Brooklyn, ☏ +1 718 923-7100. Stand-in for the County Blood Bank, where a hike in service fees leads Kramer to angrily take his business (of stockpiling his own blood, "just in case”) elsewhere.
- 7 Yankee Stadium, 161st St. and River Ave., The Bronx. Home of the New York Yankees, George's employer during the sixth, seventh, and most of the eighth season. The Yankee Stadium where George worked was torn down in 2009-10 and is now a park; the baseball team now plays in a new, identically named building on the other side of 161st Street.
California
[edit]| “ | Jerry. It's L.A. Nobody leaves. She's a seductress, she's a siren, she's a virgin, she's a whore. | ” |
—Cosmo Kramer | ||
Filming locations
[edit]Hate to break it to you, but the vast majority of Seinfeld was not filmed in New York — aside from establishing shots of building exteriors, what's on your TV screen at any given time is usually a Hollywood soundstage.
- 66 CBS Studio Center, 4024 Radford Ave., Studio City, ☏ +1 818 655-5000. This is where most of the show was filmed: on Stage 19 for the first three seasons, and on the much larger Stage 9 thereafter, as the number of different sets (and the popularity of the show) had grown substantially. In addition, many exterior scenes were filmed on the "New York Street" set between Stages 14 and 15.
- 67 Paramount Studios, 5555 Melrose Ave., Hollywood, ☏ +1 323 956-5000. After the 1994 Northridge earthquake damaged much of the CBS studio lot, there was talk of moving production of Seinfeld here. That didn't end up happening, but you'll still see Paramount's "New York street" from time to time on later seasons of the show (most notably, the chase scene in "The Rye"). Unlike CBS, they offer a two-hour tour where you can see the sets for yourself.
- 68 Red Studios Hollywood, 846 N. Cahuenga Blvd., Hollywood, ☏ +1 323 463-0808. The pilot episode of Seinfeld was shot at this small "rental studio" that's most famous as the place where I Love Lucy was filmed, back when the place was still called Desilu Studios.
- 69 Warner Bros. Studios, 3400 Riverside Drive, Burbank, ☏ +1 818 977-8687. Daily 8:30AM-3:30PM. All the exterior scenes set in the fictional Latham, Massachusetts — where the gang was booked for violating the local "good samaritan" law in "The Finale" — were filmed on the Warner Bros. backlot. Stage 4 is also where Kramer's bit part in Murphy Brown was filmed (in fiction as in real life). Like Paramount, Warner also offers a studio tour; while you're there, check out the Warner Bros. Museum next to Stage 17, where rumor has it the original sets for Monk's Cafe and Jerry's apartment are kept in cold storage.
Some scenes were shot on location in the Los Angeles area, too.
- 70 Anaheim Stadium (now Angel Stadium), 2000 E. Gene Autry Way, Anaheim, ☏ +1 714 940-2000. Three scenes that were set in the Yankees' locker room — the ones from "The Chaperone" where George talks to Buck Showalter about cotton uniforms and advises Danny Tartabull on his swing, and the one with Kramer and Paul O'Neill in "The Wink" — were instead filmed in the visiting team locker room at the Anaheim Angels' home stadium. (The former two were actually filmed during a Yankees-Angels game in July 1994.)
- 71 Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport (now Hollywood Burbank Airport), 2627 N. Hollywood Way, Burbank, ☏ +1 818 840-8840. The scenes from "The Airport" set at JFK's baggage claim and on the runway were actually filmed here.
- 72 Cheviot Hills Sports Center, 2601 Motor Ave., Culver City, ☏ +1 310 837-5186. M-F 9AM-10PM, Sa-Su 9AM-5PM. Where the scenes from "The Understudy" with Bette Midler and the charity softball game, set in Manhattan's Central Park, were in reality filmed.
- 73 Corner of S. Grand Ave. and Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles. Where the "runaway rickshaw" scene from the Season 9 episode "The Bookstore" was shot.
- 74 Griffith Park, Los Angeles, ☏ +1 323 913-4688. That's one long race: the finish line scene of the New York City Marathon in "The Hot Tub", where Jean-Paul Jean-Paul is burned by Kramer's hot coffee, was actually shot here. (The real-life end of the marathon is Central Park, of course.) Griffith Park is also where you'll find the famous HOLLYWOOD sign, which makes a couple of appearances in "The Trip".
- 75 Orpheum Theatre, 824 S. Broadway, Los Angeles, toll-free: +1 877 677-4386. The Flying Sandos Brothers' performance from "The Friars Club", where Jerry lent out and never got back his crested jacket, was filmed at this historic movie palace and vaudeville theater.
- 76 Santa Monica Pier. Lots of brooding and reflecting here: it's where George sits and takes stock of his life and decides to always do "The Opposite" of his instincts, where he reflects on all his lost loves of the past just before "The Engagement" to Susan, and where Jerry struggles to envision a life without doing "The Voice" that drives his girlfriend crazy.
- 15 The Shelley, 757 S. New Hampshire Ave., Los Angeles. This old brownstone apartment building in L.A.'s Koreatown wouldn't look out of place on the other coast — and indeed, it was the stand-in for exterior shots of Jerry's Upper West Side apartment.
- 77 Van Nuys Airport, 16461 Sherman Way, Van Nuys, ☏ +1 818 442-6526. In "The Finale", the scene at the airport where the gang boards the NBC corporate jet to Paris was filmed here. Tours are offered by reservation of this facility that's no stranger to the big or small screen — aside from Seinfeld, VNY has been featured in everything from Casablanca to Glee to Lethal Weapon to It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
- 78 Will Rogers State Beach, 17000 Pacific Coast Hwy., Pacific Palisades, ☏ +1 424 526-7777. When Kramer took up the hobby of hitting golf balls into the ocean in "The Marine Biologist", the ocean in question wasn't the Atlantic! Those scenes were filmed here, as was George's rescue of the beached whale.
"The Keys" and "The Trip"
[edit]A trio of episodes that were both set and filmed mostly in L.A. In a story arc spanning the Season 3 finale and the two-part Season 4 premiere, Kramer catches the acting bug and moves to Hollywood to try his luck, only to become a suspect in the ongoing (fictional) "Smog Strangler" serial-killer scare. Meanwhile, Jerry is booked to perform on the Tonight Show, with George tagging along.
- 37 12033 Ventura Pl., Studio City. Like most pay phones in the United States, the one from which Jerry and George called the police to try to clear Kramer's name in the murder case is long gone. But the adjacent parking lot is the one where they unknowingly help the real killer escape from police custody.
- 79 Hilton Los Angeles/Universal City, 555 Universal Hollywood Drive, Universal City, ☏ +1 818 506-2500. The hotel where Jerry and George stayed while in Los Angeles for the Tonight Show — right next door to Universal Studios, where George hoped to take the studio tour (he didn't get to).
- 38 idbox Productions, 4063 Radford Ave., Studio City. Where Kramer auditions for the music video, the horror movie, the exercise tape, and the infomercial. Closed; now Horsepower Entertainment, a presumably similar video production house.
- 80 Insomnia Cafe, 7286 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles, ☏ +1 323 931-4943. Su-Th 7AM-7PM, F-Sa 7AM-10PM. Where Kramer talks to his new friend Chelsea about the part he has in mind for her — the title role in a miniseries about Eva Braun — and nervously chats up a creeped-out Fred Savage.
- 81 Las Palmas Hotel, 1738 N. Las Palmas Ave., Los Angeles, ☏ +1 323 464-9236. The seedy flophouse where Kramer rents a room while awaiting his big break. Outside the Seinfeld universe, Las Palmas is best known as the residence of Vivian, Julia Roberts' character in Pretty Woman.
- 82 NBC Studios (now The Burbank Studios), 3000 W. Alameda Ave., Burbank, ☏ +1 818 840-3000. M-F 8AM-5:30PM. Home of The Tonight Show, where Jerry bombs after the maid at his hotel threw away his notes, and where a starstruck George makes an ass of himself backstage to Corbin Bernsen and George Wendt.
- 39 Parker Center, 150 N. Los Angeles St., Los Angeles. The then-LAPD headquarters, where Kramer is grilled — and reduced to tears — by detectives who think he's the Smog Strangler. Jerry probably recognized the place from its appearances on the old Adventures of Superman TV series with George Reeves, where it stood in for the offices of the Daily Planet. The Los Angeles Police moved to a new building at the corner of E 1st Street and S Main Street in October 2009; this building was demolished in 2019.
Elsewhere
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- 83 Amagansett Farmers Market (now Amber Waves Farm), 367 Main St., Amagansett, New York, ☏ +1 631 267-5664. Daily 7AM-7PM. Where George stops on the way back from the gang's trip to "The Hamptons" to buy some Hampton tomatoes ("You can eat 'em like apples!"), only to get one in the face from Jerry's girlfriend Rachel in a passing car.
- 84 Bridgestone Firestone (now Bridgestone Americas Center for Research and Technology), 1655 S. Main St., Akron, Ohio, ☏ +1 330 379-7000. Where, after a typically elaborate scheme involving a "Snow Tire Day" at Yankee Stadium, George travels hundreds of miles to finally confront his old office nemesis Reilly at his new job, and delivers "The Comeback" to the insult he'd given him just before his resignation. Bridgestone moved their corporate headquarters to Nashville in 2017, but they still have offices in Ohio.
- 40 Giants Stadium, 50 Route 120, East Rutherford, New Jersey. While taking in a New York Giants football game here, Kramer's attempt to pick up a ticket at the will-call window without ID leads to Elaine's unfortunately-named boyfriend Joel Rifkin being called on the P.A. system. The building was demolished in 2010 and is now a parking lot for MetLife Stadium, where the Giants (and Metro New York's other NFL team, the Jets) play today.
- 85 Joe Robbie Stadium (now Hard Rock Stadium), 347 Don Shula Drive, Miami Gardens, Florida, ☏ +1 305 943-8000. Where Jerry and Newman awkwardly attend the Super Bowl together in "The Label Maker".
- 8 New Munson Diner, 12 Lake St., Liberty, New York, ☏ +1 845 747-9912. Su-Th 6AM-9PM, F-Sa 6AM-10PM. Known on the show as Reggie's, this "Bizarro Diner" was located in Hell's Kitchen until 2005, when the building was moved to its new home in the Catskills via flatbed truck. In "The Soup", Reggie's is the workplace of Kramer's latest love interest, where, to the gang's consternation, egg white omelettes, "big salads", and decaf coffee are not on the menu. George, uncomfortable with his "worlds colliding", returns by himself a season later to avoid hanging out with Susan and his friends simultaneously.
- 86 Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort (now Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Atlantic City), 1000 Boardwalk, Atlantic City, New Jersey, ☏ +1 609 449-1000. Venue for the 1994 Miss America pageant, where Jerry accidentally kills Miss Rhode Island's trained doves.
Other places related to Seinfeld
[edit]New York City
[edit]- 87 129 W. 81st St., Upper West Side. The exterior shots were filmed in Los Angeles (see above), but this is the address used in the show for Jerry and Kramer's building — and it's the actual address of the apartment where Larry David and the real-life Jerry lived as young stand-up comedians in the '80s.
- 41 609 W. 43rd St., Hell's Kitchen. Long-ago site of Bak's Market, a produce stand where Larry was once banned for squeezing the fruit too hard. This was the inspiration for the fictional Joe's Fruit Shop from the Season 5 episode "The Mango", whose owner banned Kramer for trying to return a rotten peach — and later Jerry too, after catching him trying to buy fruit for Kramer. Now a parking ramp.
- 88 Broadhurst Theatre, 235 W. 44th St., Theater District, ☏ +1 212 239-6200. Where the real-life Jerry filmed I'm Telling You for the Last Time, a 75-minute "greatest hits"-style stand-up performance aired live on HBO in August 1998 in which he kicked off the post-Seinfeld phase of his career ("The Finale" had aired only three months prior) by ceremonially retiring all his old material. The original broadcast is available for streaming on Netflix, and the CD release won a Grammy Award the following year; if you're a Seinfeld fan, listen closely and you'll hear some bits that had been used in the show (both in the opening segments and the plots themselves).
- 42 Kam Wei Kitchen, 617 Ninth Ave., Hell's Kitchen. According to Kenny Kramer, the character of Ping, the delivery boy for the gang's favorite Chinese takeout who makes a handful of appearances in seasons 3 and 4, was based on an employee of this long-closed restaurant whom Larry knew. Now a dry cleaner.
- 43 Lee's Market, 1494 First Ave., Lenox Hill. Larry David, speaking about the day in November 1988 when Jerry approached him to serve as co-writer for the TV sitcom that NBC executives had just offered him: "We left Catch a Rising Star and we walked into a Korean grocery store, and we started, as we invariably did, talking about some of the products in the store... it occurred to me that this is the kind of discussion that you never really hear on television. And that that, in fact, would be funny." (This was the inspiration for the scene in Monk's Cafe in the third-season episode "The Pitch", where a conversation between George and the fictional Jerry about salsa led to the idea for their show-within-a-show.) Lee's Market is now a pizzeria.
- 89 Manhattan Plaza, 400-484 W. 43rd St., Hell's Kitchen. Before he was roommates with Jerry in the aforementioned apartment on West 81st Street, Larry lived for six years in this federally-subsidized apartment complex for performing artists — right across the hall from Kenny Kramer, who still lives in the building to this day.
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- 90 Park bench at W. 81st St. and Central Park West, Upper West Side. The second bench past the corner of 81st Street on the east side of Central Park West was the scene of what the real-life Jerry describes as the two most important decisions of his professional life: in the summer of 1976, it was where he told his father that he intended to pursue stand-up comedy as a career, and later in December 1997, while on a walk through Central Park with his managers George Shapiro and Howard West, it was where he made the final decision to reject NBC's still-unprecedented offer of $5 million per episode for a tenth season of Seinfeld and instead end production of the show at the close of the current season.
- The Town Hall, 123 W. 43rd St., Theater District, ☏ +1 212 997-6661. In addition to its importance within Seinfeld's fictional universe, the real-life Jerry did a stand-up performance here on September 10, 1988. Unbeknownst to him, in the audience were several executives from NBC invited by the aforementioned George Shapiro, who'd written them a letter several weeks earlier: "Call me a crazy guy, but I feel that Jerry Seinfeld will soon be doing a series on NBC". (This was later reflected in the season 3 episode "The Pitch", where Jerry's TV alter ego was approached by an NBC talent scout after a comedy set.)
- 91 Westway Diner, 614 Ninth Ave., Hell's Kitchen, ☏ +1 212 582-7661. Daily 6AM-1AM. The place where, some time after the initial flash of inspiration at Lee's Market (see above), Jerry and Larry met over lunch to formally sketch out the premise for what would become Seinfeld. The Westway was one of their favorite haunts back in the day, and in fact, it's often thought that it, rather than Tom's, was the true inspiration for Monk's Cafe.
California
[edit]- 92 Century Plaza Hotel, 2025 Avenue of the Stars, Century City, ☏ +1 310 424-3030. A suite at this landmark luxury hotel was the venue for the casting session at which Michael Richards (an avid practitioner of yoga) landed the role of Kramer by reading his scenes while standing on his head. If you'd like to sleep where that happened, best to have deep pockets: as of September 2023, rates start at $830/night for a studio suite and go (way) up from there.
- 93 Jerry's Famous Deli, 12655 Ventura Blvd., Studio City, ☏ +1 818 980-4245. Su-Th 8AM-1AM, F-Sa 8AM-3AM. After a full week of writing, rehearsing and filming, the cast of Seinfeld were famous for unwinding on Friday evenings at the Studio City location of this famous chain of New York-style Jewish delis, eating, talking, and joking together late into the night. Ask the staff and (if it's not too busy) you can see their favorite booth, now marked with a plaque.
- 94 Paisano's Pizza, 1132 Hermosa Ave., Hermosa Beach, ☏ +1 310 376-9883. Daily 11AM-midnight. A favorite pizzeria of the Seinfeld writing staff, Paisano's lent its name to the Bronx (really Greenwich Village) eatery featured in "The Calzones".
- 95 Roxy Theatre, 9009 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, ☏ +1 310 278-9457. Where, in September 1987, the real-life Jerry filmed Stand-Up Confidential, an hour-long HBO special that is considered by fans as almost a prototype version of the Seinfeld sitcom: like its counterpart, the special consisted of a stand-up performance interspersed with comedic skits and vignettes as viewed through Jerry's "Comedy X-Ray Specs", in which he — you guessed it — demonstrates how his own day-to-day life serves as fodder for his routine. As well, many of the people who worked on the special with him went on to serve as Seinfeld writers or cast members, notably Carol Leifer and Larry Miller.
Elsewhere
[edit]- 96 National Museum of American History, 1300 Constitution Ave NW, Washington, D.C., ☏ +1 202 633-1000. Daily 10AM-5:30PM. A museum with displays of American cultural history, among them the original puffy shirt which character-Jerry wore on The Today Show, designed by Kramer's low-talking fashion designer girlfriend. Free.
Activities for the Seinfeld fan
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- Festivus. A secular alternative to Christmas invented by Frank Costanza (fictionally; in real life, Seinfeld writer Dan O'Keefe based it on one of his own father's quirky traditions), popularized by the Season 9 episode "The Strike", and celebrated annually on December 23. Festivus celebrations involve families gathering around an unadorned aluminum pole in the living room, wherepon there's an "Airing of Grievances" (in which attendees takes turns griping at each other and the world in general), which in turn ultimately culminates with "Feats of Strength" (general fisticuffs, ending only when the family patriarch is successfully pinned). A meatloaf dinner is also customary. Though Festivus has taken on a life of its own among Seinfeld fans and non-fans alike, public observance isn't really a huge phenomenon: your best bet is to look around for bars holding Festivus theme nights or else hope to be invited to someone's private party.
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- Hansom cab rides in Central Park, ☏ +1 212 310-6600. Su-Th 11AM-midnight, F-Sa 11AM-1AM. Though the one Susan's parents took with Kramer in "The Rye" was anything but, in the ideal scenario a hansom cab (horse and buggy) ride is a pleasant, relaxing, and romantic way to experience New York's Central Park. Rides generally start and end at 1 Grand Army Plaza
, on the corner of 59th Street and Fifth Avenue at the southeast corner of the park, and are offered year-round. With a bit of luck, you'll be matched with a jockey who doubles as a tour guide, relating the history and significance of what you see around you. Just make sure he didn't feed the horse Beef-a-Reeno beforehand! $35 for the first 20 minutes, $10 for each additional 15-minute period; tipping is expected. - Kramer's Reality Tour, ☏ +1 212 268-5525, toll-free: +1 800 572-6377. Departures Sa noon, Su on selected weekends (consult website for schedule). "The Muffin Tops" episode is a classic case of art imitating life: at the helm of this three-hour bus tour is not Cosmo but Kenny Kramer, former neighbor of Larry David's and real-life inspiration behind the Seinfeld character. Kramer's Reality Tour takes you through the streets of Manhattan to some of the spots famously depicted on the sitcom — much the same as this article does, with the important difference being your host himself, who provides not only a depth of behind-the-scenes familiarity with the source material that you can only get from "the real Kramer", but also all the charming personality quirks of his TV counterpart. Tours begin at the Producers' Club Theatre on West 44th Street: the current site of one of Jerry's favorite old haunts, The Improv. $49.50.
- Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. The Woody Woodpecker balloon was retired in 1996, much to the probable disappointment of Mr. Pitt. But that doesn't mean you won't enjoy this nearly century-old annual tradition that draws north of a million onlookers to the streets of Manhattan. This roving spectacle sees a selection of high school and college marching bands from across the country, performers from whatever Broadway shows are playing at the time, and even store employees winding their way alongside Central Park and through midtown Manhattan ending at Macy's flagship store at Herald Square. But the two things for which the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is best known are, one, a collection of giant helium balloons in the shape of popular cartoon characters, and two, Santa Claus, whose appearance at the parade marks the unofficial start of the holiday season in New York.
- National Puerto Rican Day Parade, ☏ +1 917 685-1607. Season 9's controversial episode "The Puerto Rican Day" is a pretty effective primer on how not to celebrate this long-running annual ethnic pride festival: don't get caught in parade traffic, don't forget to attend to your bathroom needs before heading out (New York's already pointed lack of public restrooms becomes even more dire during special events), and above all, don't get caught setting fire to the Puerto Rican flag, even inadvertently! But do check out the website to see a burgeoning schedule of events in the weeks leading up to parade day (the 2 152nd Street Cultural Festival, held on the last Saturday of May in the South Bronx, is the biggest of these), and of course, do attend the parade itself, held on Fifth Avenue between 44th and 86th Streets on the second Sunday in June.
- 3 TCS New York City Marathon. If the climactic scene in the Season 7 episode "The Hot Tub" got your blood pumping, stake out a spot along a route that encompasses all five boroughs to bear witness to one of the most preeminent long-distance footraces in the United States. The New York City Marathon is held annually on the first Sunday in November, beginning on Staten Island at the foot of the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge and from there winding through Brooklyn, Queens, Roosevelt Island, the East Side, the South Bronx, and Harlem before reaching the finish line at Runner's Grove in Central Park, just across from Tavern on the Green. Or, if merely being a spectator isn't enough, why not compete in the race yourself? Applications for the entry drawing are accepted between mid-January and mid-February of the year of the race; entry fees in 2019 were $295 for U.S. residents and $358 for non-residents.
Go next
[edit]- Of course, after you wrap up your tour in either New York City or Los Angeles, you'd be remiss not to explore the myriad other attractions on offer in those world-class cities.
- While you're in the Big Apple, you could also check out the sites from that other group of '90s-era "Must See TV" twentysomethings on the Friends Tour.
- Or perhaps head to Albuquerque to follow along on the further adventures of Bryan Cranston a/k/a Dr. Tim Whatley, who, as Walter White in ABC's hit crime drama Breaking Bad, trades in his career as a mild-mannered science teacher for the high-stakes life of a drug kingpin.