Carrie Bradshaw’s Stoop Will Get a Gate – Curbed
Every product is independently selected by editors. Things you buy through our links may earn Vox Media a commission.If you’ve been to Perry Street on a mild weekend day, you know that Carrie Bradshaw’s stoop is thronged with tourists and gawkers. They each want a photo or, increasingly, a numbingly similar-to-all-the-others TikTok video (while there’s still a TikTok) in front of the brownstone at No. 66, featured in Sex and the City since 2000. After dealing with two-plus decades of fan worship on her front steps, the homeowner, Barbara Lorber, this morning made a formal application to the Landmarks Preservation Commission to add an iron gate at the base of the stoop. (Emily Sundberg’s newsletter broke the news yesterday.)This was, Lorber told the commission, an unhappy choice. She has owned the house since 1978. When she bought it, the front steps as well as most of the house’s 19th-century detailing had been sheared off, as had been common practice before the district was landmarked in 1969. Lorber put it all back, including a meticulous re-creation of the stoop. Since the start of the Bradshaw era, Lorber told the commission, she has “postponed what, I guess, is the inevitable.” She even teared up while making her argument, saying “That house shouldn’t be gated!” She’s already installed a chain across the steps with a sign reading PRIVATE PROPERTY — NO TRESPASSING. The picture-takers have ignored it, often clambering over to take their photos. Including, once, Sarah Jessica Parker herself.Landmarks generally doesn’t love a gate — the idea being that stoops are semi-public space, where neighborhood residents can sit, socialize, observe, commingle — but, obviously, this particular situation is a little different. (It slightly recalls the enormous barrier that in the early 1990s replaced a low fence and chain at Sniffen Court, the mews on East 36th Street that grew lightly famous after appearing on the cover of a Doors album. That one, though, was probably less about intrusive Jim Morrison fans and more about New York’s crime rate at the time.) The Perry Street mania is probably unique, especially because the house’s stoop is tempting and pleasant: There are plenty of fans taking pictures at Seinfeld landmarks like Tom’s Restaurant or the Friends building on Bedford Street, but neither really supplies a spot to sit and pose.At the hearing, a neighbor of Lorber’s offered testimony on her behalf, saying that that whole block of Perry Street is overwhelmed with SATC pilgrims and their litter, adding that an aggressive visitor once threatened to punch her in the face. The Victorian Society of New York, which is often highly orthodox and disdainful about these kinds of changes, also came out in favor. There was a little discussion among the commissioners of fine-tuning changes to the gate’s details (height, level of ornamentation), all of which, they agreed, can be resolved through back-and-forth with the commission’s staff. Most of the commissioners expressed sympathy for the headache that the house’s fame has wrought, and just like that, the gate was approved, eight in favor, none opposed.Every product is independently selected by editors. Things you buy through our links may earn Vox Media a commission.
