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On July 5th, 1989 NBC debuted a new pilot called The Seinfeld Chronicles. It starred NYC comedian Jerry Seinfeld and focused on his stand up and those everyday conversations and situations that make up modern life. 25 years later, the show that became known across the world as Seinfeld did more than net NBC an incredible amount of money, it helped change television forever. Known as “The Show About Nothing,”Seinfeld was anything but: it was about love, friendship, family, work, all the things that most New Yorker’s could live without most of the time.
While the interiors were shot mostly in California, Seinfeld is still the quintessential NYC show and used stock footage of NYC for exterior locations. The topics of conversations and the situations these four self-absorbed, needy and iconic characters go through are timeless. In celebration of the show’s 25th anniversary, we present ten of our favorite locations and moments of Seinfeld.
The red neon sign is known to anyone who has ever watched an episode of Seinfeld. While the interiors of the so called “Monk’s Cafe” were filmed on a soundstage in California, the exterior is located Morningside Heights. Tom’s Restaurant is still open, probably on account of its fame and because it’s where Columbia students come in to gorge themselves on eggs and hash browns in the mornings before tests, “or milkshake and gravy fries at 3am in the morning on a Thursday, Friday, or Saturday night.”
The bagel shop was also featured on the TV shows Seinfeld and Friends. The building now sells phones.
One of the main locations used in the tenth episode of the show’s final season, H&H Bagels in the Upper East Side is where we finally learn where Kramer works. It is also the episode where Kramer gets involved in the made up holiday of “Festivius.” H&H Bagels was founded in 1972 by Helmer Toro and is the largest manufacturer of bagels in the world. The reason why the show took so long to show us Kramer’s place of work is because he has been on strike… for 12 years. The shop has served many celebrities in its three locations for years, including former President Bill Clinton, Barbara Streisand, John Madden, Michael J. Fox and Jerry Stiller himself.
At one point there were three different H&H locations but the rest are no more, with the locations closing up shop in the past few years. No word on whether they still distribute bagels globally.
Seinfeld is not the only time you get to see the bagel shop on screen, it also is seen in the ’90s romantic comedy You’ve Got Mail.
In the season 3 episode “The Boyfriend” Jerry meets his favorite baseball player Keith Hernandez in the West Side YMCA locker room. With various locations spread out throughout the city, the YMCA has provided NYC with a place where kids, as well as adults can learn about living healthier lives for over 100 years.
The episode is most famous for the famous “Magic Loogie” story, where Kramer and Newman tell Elaine and Jerry the story of being spit on by Keith Hernandez. After hearing the story, Jerry re-enacts the incident, using a golf club to show that it was in fact someone else who spit on Kramer and Newman and not Keith Hernandez. The classic sequence was a riff on the “Magic Bullet Theory” scene in the early 90’s Oliver Stone film JFK – which actor Wayne Knight was featured in.
Inside St. Luke’s Roosevelt Center on Amsterdam Avenue and 113th Street, Jerry and Kramer observe a surgery being performed on Elaine’s ex-boyfriend Roy. During the procedure, Kramer offers Jerry a Junior Mint that he purchased from a vending machine. Jerry refuses and when Kramer keeps insisting, Jerry knocks it out of his hand, where it falls onto Roy’s open surgical wound.
The hospital opened in 1858 and moved to its current location in 1911. The building and in house chapel was designed by Ernest Flagg. It houses a teaching facility and does not allow anyone to bring in candy of an kind during medical procedures.
“NO SOUP FOR YOU!” is a catchphrase that still can be heard whenever anyone gets together to talk about Seinfeld. The character of “The Soup Nazi” is actually based on a really Soup chef who Jerry and the crew would go to for years. Known as “The Original Soup Man” Al Yeganeh despises the “Soup Nazi” name that has been placed on him after the episode’s premiere. It is said that after the premiere, Yeganeh (who is Iranian, not German) dished out a curse-filled filled tirade against Jerry Seinfeld and refused to give him soup.
He shut down his business in 2004, only to re-open six year later at the same location: 259-A West 59th Street. You can go there today and order some soup, but remember to follow the rules, which Al has in many different languages.
In the Season 3 episode The Subway, all four of the main characters experience a one-of-a-kind (we hope) experience riding the subway. None other however, could be more embarrassing or disturbing than George’s experience. Thinking he is going to get laid by a beautiful stranger, George does not realize that this women is playing him, planning to abandon him at the hotel, while robbing him.
The incident, where the woman takes his only good suit happens inside the Edison Hotel on 47th Street. Luckily for George he did not end up like Luca Brasi, when he made a stop at the famous hotel.
In the season 7 finale “The Wig Master” George and Kramer have been using a discount parking lot in Midtown because the rates are so low. Much to George’s surprise he finds a prophylactic in the car, leading him to believe that the lot is a place where prostitutes take their johns. In a hilarious moment of bad timing, Kramer–who has been giving clothes and a cane throughout the episode–catches a prostitute and her john in his car. When he tries to restrain the sex worker, the police appear, believing that Kramer is a pimp.
In case you want to park your car (and that’s all) you can head to Park Right parking lot on 11th Avenue and 44th Street.
The fruit stand on which Kramer and later Jerry get banned by the shop owner does not really exist. However it is said that the shop is inspired by an actual fruit stand that series co-creator Larry David was actually banned from. The shop formerly known as Bak’s Market once occupied 609 W 43rd Street. The area is now a giant office building.
The new Yankee Stadium
In the fifth season of the series, George decides to act on his instincts and when he makes a decision, to do the exact opposite. By the time the episode ends, George not only gets an attractive new love interest, but gets a job working for the New York Yankees. For the next few season George works for the Yankees until he is traded for a chicken franchise.
The former home to the 27-time World Series Champions is across the street from their new home in E. 161st Street in the Bronx. The former home to the Yankees is where they won 26 of their 27 World Series titles and was the home for the Yankees from 1923 to 2008.
For some Yankee trivia, did you know that there was once a Yankees football team that played in the baseball stadium? Or that they used to play where NY Presbyterian Hospital is located today?
George Costanza’s parent’s house
The home to George Costanza’s parents is listed as being in 1344 Queens Boulevard. In actuality, the house shown in the series is at 22-37 37th Street in Astoria, Queens. Interiors were filmed on a set.
Next, check out the recreation of Seinfeld’s Apartment in NYC. To know what happened to his artistic integrity, contact the author @TatteredFedora
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