Not all dispatches will be about the Village as Sex-and-the-City-scenery but recently something happened around here that I think is worth mentioning. I’ve mentioned the busfulls of tourists flooding our streets which can sometimes exasperate locals. The bottleneck of this kind of thing can be found at Magnolia Bakery on Bleecker Street (sight of Carrie and Miranda once eating cupcakes) and, even more so, on nearby Perry Street, sight of the exterior used for Carrie’s (allegedly Upper East Side) townhouse. Every week, dozens, sometimes hundreds, of tourists clog the street outside to take pictures, mingle and chat.

Over the years, the owners of the SATC house have put up a brave little chain to try to keep the hoards off their stoop with only middling success. They’ve put up signs asking for quiet and even a box for donations to worthy causes. Then, one day in March 2025, it all came to a head. And it was caught on videotape.

The home’s owner threw open the front door to call out a pod of tourists who were being too loud. Here’s the unexpectedly good news: both sides behaved well. The owner apologized if he was confronting the wrong set of visitors about the noise and the tourists said they perfectly understood his frustration.

The whole thing is enough to make a cynical New Yorker smile.

As anyone who lives in Dubrovnik (King’s Landing on Game of Thrones) or Sicily (where the second season of White Lotus was filmed) or scads of other places knows, a hit TV show or movie can mean thousands of tourists showing up to “set-jet.” But it need not end in tears if locals have patience and visitors pack a little sympathy.