This week in West Village Whining: The owner of Carrie Bradshaw’s “Sex and the City” apartment on posh Perry Street got permission to build a steel-and-cast-iron gate in front of her building, so unfathomably rowdy the tourists have become.
Call it “Sex” and the NIMBY.
In an application to the Landmark Preservation Committee, outraged landlord Barbara Lorber — for whom Manolo Blahnik is a four-letter word — argued that “at any given hour of the day or night, there are groups of visitors in front of the house taking flash photos, engaging in loud chatter, posting on social media, or just celebrating the moment.”
Imagine. People excitedly talking on the street. In Manhattan. That’s practically a war crime.
Worst of all — are you sitting down? — happy HBOers often sit on the iconic stairs of 66 Perry Street to snap pics pretending to be Sarah Jessica Parker’s Carrie, defying the owner’s attempt to create a fenced-in subdivision with her existing “no trespassing” chain.
Sometimes, if fans are a bit buzzed, they’ll even ring the doorbell.
Lock ‘em up!
The city approved Lorber’s wildly overdramatic request for a barrier because the five borough’s biggest threat today is free-spending, grown women in tutus.
Sorry, but I’m feeling about as sympathetic as a Soho House desk host.
Stop by Chez Johnny sometime, Barb, for four flights of stairs and a WayFair couch that I could swear was blue once.
Every evening without fail, some schlub is dining on my East Village steps like he’s at an al fresco Denny’s.
Later on, blotto NYU kids incomprehensibly scream until they’re red in the face at 4 a.m. when the last pubs are padlocked.
FedEx buzzes me from dawn til dusk to accept absent tenants’ packages.
When I lived in Washington Heights, junkies regularly made a Holiday Inn of my lobby after breaking the lock.
Where’s my gate?
Look, I’m sure it’s extremely irritating to be the real-estate manifestation of why so many young women dream of moving to New York to become columnists, execs and fashionistas. A hardship, truly.
Now, instead of having a luxe walkup in one of the city’s ritziest nabes, you’re Katz’s Deli, Tom’s Restaurant, the Lincoln Center fountain and the firehouse from “Ghostbusters.” Presumably you were paid for this horrific torment.
“Not enough!,” I can hear you shouting from across 5th Ave. You’re probably right.
But isn’t it a tiny bit cool to live in an enduring piece of New York City history? Beyond the catchphrases and dresses, that show — and, by extension, your abode — were an essential billboard for NYC after 9/11. “It “Sex and the City” said NYC is still glamorous, fun and defiant.
Just accept that we live in one of the most filmed places in the world. Your home is a huge reason people visit here from all across the globe. You should be bragging about getting more sightseers than the “Moonstruck” brownstone in Murray Hill.
How lucky are we to live in such a desirable, famous metropolis with an icon around every corner? Isn’t it flattering that people fly here not to see grand the home of the Queen, the president or the pope, but the reasonably normal apartment of their favorite fictional New Yorker?
Was it not incredibly moving to watch devastated “Friends” fans mourn the death of Matthew Perry outside that sit-com’s instantly recognizable exterior — in your very own neighborhood?
It was for me.
Actually, hold on. Scratch that.
If your new gate gets “And Just Like That…” canceled, I’m behind you all the way.
Make the West Village Gate Again!
This post was originally published on here
