“You’ve Got Mail” is a quarter-century old, but some of its themes resonate more than ever – for better and for worse.
The 1998 rom-com “You’ve Got Mail” is the most recent onscreen retelling of a story based on the 1937 Hungarian play “Parfumerie” that was later adapted into 1940’s “The Shop Around the Corner” and 1949’s “In the Good Old Summertime. Nora Ephron’s take on the tale follows Kathleen Kelly (Meg Ryan) and Joe Fox (Tom Hanks), two anonymous online friends who instant message through AOL. But what they don’t realize is that they are enemies in real life because Joe runs the mega book store Fox Books (modeled after Barnes & Noble) that is putting Kathleen’s independent book store The Shop Around the Corner out of business.
On one hand, the Nora Ephron classic that turned the affable Hanks into a greedy, capitalistic suit and embraced personal computer use is as dated as its AOL-centered premise. On the other hand, Ephron’s sharp script hits on some crucial cultural conversations surrounding connections and capitalism that we still discuss today.
To celebrate the anniversary of the beloved Ephron movie, I took a walking tour of all the film’s major New York City locations and learned some surprising things about the movie that uses the bustling city as its backdrop and about the city itself. The tour was both entertaining and bittersweet, as the realities of filming in New York were made apparent from what we could and couldn’t see.
Kathleen’s Upper West Side apartment
The Upper West Side is at the center of the world in “You’ve Got Mail,” so I traveled an hour on the train to get to West 89th Street which is where Kathleen’s spacious and airy apartment exteriors were filmed. Most of the film’s online chat scenes with Joe and Kathleen supposedly took place in that very brownstone – although the interiors were actually filmed on a New Jersey sound stage.
“There’s also a [multi-]generational element to this neighborhood, which you can see in ‘You’ve Got Mail’ where Kathleen’s mom owns the store.”
When I arrived at the apartment, I was met by Grace Briskman, a tour guide for On Location tours. In her first run of this “You’ve Got Mail” tour with real guests, she’s dressed in a red peacoat with a dozen red roses in her tote bag. She’s a big Meg Ryan and Nora Ephron fan and looks the part too.
When I asked Briskman why the Upper West Side is the perfect place for the film’s setting and why we never leave the neighborhood in the movie, she said: “They say it’s a sleepy Upper West Side. I think this neighborhood, specifically compared to other neighborhoods in New York City, really has a small community feel with the brownstones and the local schools.”
She nannied in the neighborhood and said the kids “would always recognize their neighbors and their classmates.
