Manhattan, 1979
Director
Cast
visit the film locations
New York: Flights: JFK Airport
Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Avenue at 82nd Street (tel: 212.535.7710)
The Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, 1071 Fifth Avenue at East 89th Street (tel: 212.423.3500)
MOMA, the Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53rd Street (tel: 212.708.9400)
Hayden Planetarium, part of the American Museum of Natural History at Central Park West on 81st Street
Whitney Museum of American Art, 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street (tel: 212.570.3676
Eat at: Elaine’s, 1703 Second Avenue between 88th and 89th Streets on the East Side a restaurant to see and be seen in rather than eat in (tel: 212.534. 8103)
Eat at: John’s Pizza, 278 Bleecker Street at Morton Street and Seventh Avenue in Greenwich Village: this is a place to eat – the best pizza in New York, according to Woody Allen himself
Eat at: the Empire Diner, 210 Tenth Avenue between West 22nd and West 23rd Streets. Late night drinks , or early breakfast, in a classic retro diner
Shop at: Dean and DeLuca Inc, 560 Broadway between Prince and Spring Streets in SoHo: speciality foodstore
Shop at: Zabar’s, 2245 Broadway at 80th Street: gourmet treats
Shop at: Rizzoli’s Bookstore, 31 West 57th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues: bookstore
Shop till you drop at: Bloomingdale’s, 59th Street between Lexington Avenue and Third Avenue: classic department store
Trivia
Where to start? For more of Woody Allen's New York, see Hannah and Her Sisters, Alice or Another Woman
See the Guggenheim Museum in Men In Black
The Empire Diner in Men In Black II and Igby Goes Down
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in Changing Lanes, and its exterior (only) in the 1999 remake of The Thomas Crown Affair and Brian De Palma's Dressed To Kill
The American Museum of Natural History in Malcolm X, Splash! and Spider-Man 2
The Russian Tea Room, 150 West 57th Street in Tootsie
Manhattan location: New York romance in the small hours: Riverview Terrace, Sutton Square, 59th Street, New York
Woody Allen’s impeccably stylish monochrome hymn to New York kicks off with a montage of the city’s iconic images. I know – ‘Iconic’ is one of the most over-used words in film criticism, and I'm probably more guilty of its abuse than anyone. But, in my defence, tracking down ‘iconic’ images is my quest. And Manhattan has more than its share – so it's not surprising that it shares locations with lots of other films.
Manhattan location: Manhattan landmark: the Empire Diner, Tenth Avenue, Chelsea, New York
The New York landmarks featured in the prologue include the thirties-style, stainless steel Empire Diner, 210 Tenth Avenue between West 22nd and West 23rd Streets (featured also in Men In Black II and Igby Goes Down); the Staten Island ferry; the Lincoln Center; and the Temple of Dendur, an Egyptian complex rebuilt in the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Fifth Avenue, illuminated within its purpose-built, glass-walled gallery (also the setting for the opening scene of Roger Michell's Changing Lanes, with Samuel L Jackson and Ben Affleck).
Manhattan location: Manhattan landmark: foursome at the restaurant: Elaine’s, 1703 Second Avenue, East Side, New York
The film is burdened with the line destined to haunt Allen forever (“I’m dating a girl who does homework”) during the opening foursome at Elaine’s, 1703 Second Avenue between 88th and 89th Streets on the East Side – a restaurant more to see and be seen in rather than eat.
Manhattan location: Isaac and Mary meet at the exhibition: Guggenheim Museum, 1071 Fifth Avenue, New York
Isaac Davis (Allen) has an inauspicious meeting with neurotic poseur Mary Wilkie (Diane Keaton) at an exhibition in Frank Lloyd Wright’s white spiral Guggenheim Museum, 1071 Fifth Avenue at East 89th Street. (where Will Smith encounters his first alien in Men In Black), but begins a guarded flirtation after a second meeting in the Sculpture Gallery of Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), 11 West 53rd Street. Apart from painting, drawing and sculpture, the MoMA collection also includes more than 22,000 films and four million film stills – making it the strongest international film collection in the United States. Among the holdings are original negatives of the Biograph and Edison companies, and the world's largest collection of DW Griffith films. The film collection is stored in the Museum's Celeste Bartos Film Preservation Center, a state-of-the-art facility opened in 1996
It’s afterwards that the pair famously watch dawn breaking from a bench on Riverview Terrace on Sutton Square, beneath the Queensboro Bridge. The stunning image inspires the movie’s famous poster, but there’s no bench here and the view is now disfigured by a series of bollards (there’s a tiny park just below, which obviously inspired the scene, but the famous view is from the street itself).
The speciality food store, where Isaac Davis and schoolgirl Tracy (Mariel Hemingway) diss Mary Wilkie, is Dean and DeLuca Inc, 560 Broadway between Prince and Spring Streets in SoHo. Isaac kvetches to Yale (Michael Murphy) in Rizzoli’s Bookstore, 31 West 57th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues (where Robert DeNiro meets Meryl Streep in the 1984 romance Falling in Love), after throwing in his TV job.
Manhattan location: Isaac and his son discuss guy stuff: Russian Tea Room, 150 West 57th Street, New York
Mary and Yale meet furtively at the perfume counter of shoppers' heaven, Bloomingdale’s, 59th Street between Lexington Avenue and Third Avenue, while Isaac collects his kid from ex-wife Jill (Meryl Streep) for a meal and some guy stuff, at the (subsequently closed, but now renovated) Russian Tea Room, 150 West 57th Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues, the showbiz hangout seen also in Tootsie.
Manhattan location: Isaac and Mary duck into the Hayden Planetarium, Central Park West, New York
Photograph: Nils Reucker
An electrical storm in Central Park causes an increasingly friendly Isaac and Mary to duck into the Hayden Planetarium, part of the American Museum of Natural History at Central Park West on 81st Street (the complex in which Tobey Maguire attends the charity bash in Spider-Man 2).
Tracy’s school is the progressive Dalton School, 61 East 91st Street on the Upper East Side.
Manhattan location: Manhattan landmark: Isaac and Tracy: John's Pizza, Bleecker Street, Greenwich Village, New York
The pizza place, where she tells Isaac she’s off to London, is John’s Pizza, 278 Bleecker Street at Morton Street and Seventh Avenue in Greenwich Village. It’s small and usually packed, unsurprising since it was recommended by the director as the best pizza in New York – and who's going to argue with that?
Isaac plays squash with Yale at the Uptown Racquet Club, Park Avenue between 52nd and 53rd Streets, visits the Whitney Museum of American Art, 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street, with Mary Wilkie, and watches art movies with her at the now gone Cinema Studio, which stood at 1966 Broadway. Still there, though, is speciality delicatessen Zabar’s, 2245 Broadway at 80th Street, where the couple gaze at the gourmet delights on display.
There’s a quick break away from Manhattan. It’s on an outing to the Palisades at Englewood Cliffs, across the Hudson River in New Jersey, that Isaac gets to see Jill’s published account of their marital break-up.