Narrow brick townhouses of three and four floors line streets that run off the city grid, and Bedford Street is where Friends shot its apartment exterior.
What the West Village looks like
The streets do not run square to the rest of Manhattan. They sit at an angle to the numbered grid to the north, narrow and short. West 4th Street crosses West 10th, West 11th and West 12th and then ends at West 13th. A few east-west blocks are still paved in setts, not asphalt.
Most of the buildings are brick row houses of three and four floors, with stoops up to the parlor floor and paneled shutters at the windows. has the oldest house in the Village at number 77, put up in 1799. Number 75½ next door is nine feet six inches wide, squeezed between two brick fronts.
Facade lines run almost unbroken from block to block, three and four story brick fronts with few gaps between them. Doors sit flush against the sidewalk behind a step or two, with window boxes and iron railings along many of them.
and carry the shops, and the traffic drops off a block behind either one. , and stay residential for most of their length, with street trees arched over the roadway. runs west from them toward the river, where brick gives way to stucco fronts.
Crews work here often. A block is short enough that a unit and its trucks take up most of one, and the narrow one way streets mean a shot at one corner holds up the block behind it too.
Shot in the West Village
Two buildings here play apartments in shows that were otherwise made in Los Angeles. One is on Bedford Street at Grove Street, the other on Perry Street a few blocks away.
Friends, 1994 to 2004
Played Monica and Rachel's apartment building, New York City, 1994 to 2004
The building Monica and Rachel live in is 90 Bedford Street, on the corner of Grove Street. Only the outside of it is in the show, since Friends was made in Los Angeles. When Matthew Perry died in October 2023, people left flowers and handwritten signs on that corner for days. Street View
Sex and the City, 1998 to 2004
Played Carrie Bradshaw's apartment, New York City, 1998 to 2004
Carrie Bradshaw's front steps are at 66 Perry Street. The apartment behind them was a set at Silvercup Studios in Long Island City. People have not stopped coming, and in January 2025 the Landmarks Preservation Commission approved a gate across the bottom of the stoop after the owner told the commission that visitors had tried to climb in at the windows.
What the West Village can double for
Beacon Hill in Boston, Massachusetts
Beacon Hill's red brick Federal and Greek Revival rowhouses went up between 1800 and 1850, at the same three and four story scale as the Village with paneled doors and iron railings. Its brick sidewalks and gas lamps already look the part. A few houses there have purple tinted window glass that gives it away in a close shot, and Beacon Hill's streets run steeper and straighter than the Village's bent blocks. Try searching brick Federal rowhouses street now.
Willow and Hicks Streets carry the same three and four story brick and brownstone fronts as the Village, with stoops and street trees mostly built from the 1820s through the 1860s. The blocks there run straighter and the stoops sit taller than the Village's bent streets, so a wide shot gives away the difference. Try searching brownstone stoop street now.
Society Hill's two to four story brick rowhouses carry the same shuttered windows and paneled doorways, on streets still paved in cobblestone and Belgian block. Philadelphia's cast iron Franklin style street lamps and wider, straighter blocks are the tell in a full street shot, so a tighter frame on one doorway holds the match best. Try searching cobblestone brick rowhouses street now.
