Prepping for 'And Just Like That' on Avenue A

Text and photos by Stacie Joy

On Wednesday afternoon, I was visiting with Nancy Preston, owner of Milk Money Kitchens at 50 Avenue A. (Read more about Milk Money, which provides commercial kitchen rentals and consulting services for food businesses, right here.) 

Preston was prepping her space between Third Street and Fourth Street for an HBO shoot for the "Sex and The City" revival titled "And Just Like That." (You probably noticed the production trucks along Avenue A!)

Featured in the spread for the assembled cast and crew: cupcakes named after the show's main characters. Today's scene involved cast members Kristin Davis and Mario Cantone (no Cynthia Nixon or Sarah Jessica Parker here). Executive producer Michael Patrick King was also on hand and took a moment to take a photo with Preston.

And thanks to Nancy for letting me stick around to watch the setup...

Next stop!

Dunno if I never noticed the "Sex and the City" CitySights NY tour buses before... like this one that stopped on First Avenue near East Ninth Street... and yes — tourists do have to enter the bus between her legs.

[Updated] Not an April Fool's gag: 'The Carrie Diaries' filming on the Bowery and Bond today

So... "Sex and the City" prequel "The Carrie Diaries" follows Carrie Bradshaw during her senior year of high school during the early 1980s and subsequent move to New York... And it will be a series on the CW... and today, crews are on the Bowery and Bond Street to film scenes for the show... [Updated: Crews are also on Astor Place and Lafayette]

...and the crew brought in some early 80s classics for the shoot...

And did Ian Schrager OK these clunkers to be parked so close to 40 Bond?

Updated 3:01 p.m.

Cars aren't the only retro parts of the shoot... here are extras on Lafayette that Organizing the Soup spotted...

At least we think they're extras.

Today's sign of the apocalypse: 'Sex and the City' slots

After a few hundred years of false starts, the Resorts World New York casino is now open at EV Grieve favorite Aqueduct Racetrack... and, as you may have heard, among the more than 2,000 slot machines...

[James Messerschmidt/NY Post]

AHHHHHHHHHHH.

According to the Post:

Players hit a button that spins traditional slot-machine reels adorned with images of Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda, along with a limousine icon, the “Sex and the City” logo, and other items from the show.

Hitting a row of bonus logos spins a separate electronic wheel, which features symbols for each of the show’s stars.

Players can win the top award if the wheel lands on a suitcase — the symbol for Carrie’s boyfriend, Mr. Big — and they pick correctly from one of three suitcases displayed on screen.

Bonus photo from the Racino opening...

[James Messerschmidt/NY Post]

[EVG flashback] These are a few of the photos you'll find when you search for "Carrie Bradshaw" on Flickr

Yesterday, Curbed noted that 64 Perry Street is now on the market... For worse, this 1866 West Village rowhouse serves as the stand-in for Carrie Bradshaw's home on "Sex and the City." This item reminded me that! For some reason, I left the neighborhood to do this post, which first appeared on June 2, 2008...

Part of the Sex and the City tours includes a stop at this Perry Street townhouse in the West Village. Yes, this is the stoop that the Carrie Bradshaw character sits on in the show. (Actually, five different stoops were used; this one most frequently, I'm told by someone who really likes and knows the show.)

According to Forbes: The show, which made a fifth character out of New York City, attracts fans to the Big Apple in droves, and locals cash in. Location Tours offers a three-hour bus tour that stops at shops and bars that have appeared on the show. The tour costs $40 a head, and its owners say it attracts as many as 1,000 people a week. Destination on Location Travel offers "set-jetting" weekends in New York, where groups of up to twelve women are shuttled around town and given the fantasy that they're one of the four Sex characters. The price: a hefty $15,000 per person.

More woes for Blockbuster

Noted

Looking at the weekend box-office report...

Sex and the City 2 notched an estimated $32.1 million on approximately 6,100 screens at 3,445 locations, bringing its total to $46.3 million since its Thursday debut. That's a huge step backwards from the first Sex and the City, which bagged $57 million on its first weekend. Distributor Warner Bros.' exit polling indicated that a whopping 90 percent of Sex 2's audience was female, and 54 percent was under 35 years old. By comparison, the first Sex's opening weekend audience was 83 percent female.

Meanwhile, the SATC2 sign vandalism continued around the neighborhood....





BoweryBoogie has pointed out some SATCII vandalism on the LES...

"SATC2 takes everything that I hold dear as a woman ... and rapes it to death with a stiletto that costs more than my car"

I made a vow not to discuss "Sex and the City II." At least more than I already have. But Jeremiah's post today got me all riled up. Anyway, among other things, he points us to Foster Kamer's rundown on the best SATCII slams here at the Voice. (Thanks Esquared!)

Meanwhile, Scott Lamb at BuzzFeed has a hilarious post this morning titled Don’t See Sex And The City 2. Here, you'll find some more blurbs from SATCII reviews. Like this one from Roger Ebert:

These people make my skin crawl.

However, arguably the greatest review is by Lindy West at The Stranger:

“SATC2 takes everything that I hold dear as a woman and as a human—working hard, contributing to society, not being an entitled cunt like it’s my job—and rapes it to death with a stiletto that costs more than my car. It is 146 minutes long, which means that I entered the theater in the bloom of youth and emerged with a family of field mice living in my long, white mustache. This is an entirely inappropriate length for what is essentially a home video of gay men playing with giant Barbie dolls.

And!

If this is what modern womanhood means, then just fucking veil me and sew up all my holes. Good night.

[Silence]



[Top image via BuzzFeed]

Should have known

The Sex and the City II economy tour

From Gadling.com yesterday... some NYC specials based on "Sex and the City II" ... and this is just... depressing...

New York City's Pod Hotel, a budget-minded property on East 51st Street, has put together one of these anti-SATC packages.

Starting at $139 per night, the "Don't Get Carried Away" package includes one night in a bunk-bed room at the Pod, two cupcakes from Buttercup Bake Shop, a Brooklyn cocktail at East Side Social Club, and a knock-off designer handbag from Canal Street.

This package is a refreshing alternative to other SATC-themed packages, which typically have heftier price tags (can you say luxurious suites, Magnolia Bakery cupcakes, Cosmopolitan cocktails, and designer brands?)

And I just can't tell if this is supposed to be funny or not.

"Sex and the City 2" ads make empty building look better empty

At 42nd Street and Sixth Avenue a few months ago... when the dread first began (again)...











Now at the same spot ... much better...