Gossip Girl and New York City
Gossip Girl ran for six seasons on The CW between 2007 and 2012, adapted from Cecily von Ziegesar's novels about private-school teenagers on the Upper East Side. The premise is a single anonymous blog that publishes everything they do, and the setting does as much work as the plot: a school on Fifth Avenue, a hotel as a home address, a museum staircase as a lunch table.
Because the production shot its exteriors in the city itself, the show doubles as a map. Nearly every recognisable frame belongs to a street you can stand on — which is why the Met steps and the Empire Hotel sign became destinations long after the finale aired. A separate continuation series with a new cast followed on HBO Max from 2021 to 2023, filmed in the same neighbourhoods.
Where Was Gossip Girl Filmed?
In New York City. Exteriors were filmed on location, mostly on the Upper East Side and around Midtown and Central Park, with Brooklyn standing in for the Humphrey side of the story. Interiors — apartments, bedrooms, school corridors — were shot on stages in New York, not inside the real buildings.
This corrects a claim that circulated for years, including in an earlier version of this page: the series was not primarily shot in Los Angeles. It is a New York production.
For the full list, street by street, see our guide to the Gossip Girl filming locations in New York or open the Gossip Girl locations map and plan a walking order.
Most Iconic Gossip Girl Filming Locations in NYC
Eight places that carry most of the series, with the real address and what you find there now.
The Met Steps
Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Avenue
The steps outside the Met are where Blair holds court at lunch and where the show's social order is set out in public. The museum is a working museum, so the steps are simply a public staircase on Fifth Avenue — free, open and busy all day.
The Met steps, Fifth Avenue at 82nd Street.
Grand Central Terminal
89 East 42nd Street
Grand Central bookends the series: Serena arrives from boarding school on the first episode's platform, and the terminal returns for departures and reunions later on. The main concourse and the Whispering Gallery below it are open to the public.
Grand Central's main concourse, where Serena arrives back in New York.
Lotte New York Palace
455 Madison Avenue
The courtyard and gates of the Palace stand in for the hotel where Serena and Lily live in the early seasons. The Madison Avenue gates are the shot fans recognise, and the courtyard can be walked into from the street.
The Palace courtyard on Madison Avenue.
The Empire Hotel
44 West 63rd Street
Chuck Bass's hotel. The neon sign by Lincoln Center is one of the show's most photographed exteriors, and the address is a real working hotel rather than a set.
The Empire Hotel entrance, a block from Lincoln Center.
Bethesda Terrace, Central Park
Central Park, mid-park at 72nd Street
Central Park carries the show's off-the-record conversations, and the arcade and fountain at Bethesda Terrace are the settings that appear most often — including the park scenes around the series finale.
The tiled arcade under Bethesda Terrace in Central Park.
Blair Waldorf's apartment building
1136 Fifth Avenue
The exterior used for the Waldorf home is a private residential building facing Central Park. Only the outside appears on screen — the apartment interiors were built on a stage — so this is a look-from-the-pavement stop.
Upper East Side residential Fifth Avenue, where the Waldorf exterior sits.
Constance Billard — Museum of the City of New York
1220 Fifth Avenue
There is no Constance Billard or St. Jude's. The school steps belong to the Museum of the City of New York on Fifth Avenue, which is why the uniforms and the staircase look grander than any real school entrance.
The Museum of the City of New York — the school steps on screen.
Grand Army Plaza and The Plaza
Fifth Avenue at 59th Street
The Pulitzer Fountain and the Plaza Hotel frontage appear across the series as the show's version of Upper East Side ceremony — arrivals, goodbyes and the odd public argument.
Pulitzer Fountain at Grand Army Plaza, in front of The Plaza.
Going deeper on any one of them: the Met steps scenes explained, the private Central Park tour stops, the Gossip Girl hotels in NYC including the Palace and the Empire, and where Chuck and Blair got married.
The Upper East Side and Gossip Girl
Almost everything that matters on the show happens in a narrow strip of Manhattan: Fifth and Madison Avenues roughly between 59th and 86th Streets, with Central Park on one side and the townhouse blocks on the other. The museum that plays the school, the building that plays Blair's home and the steps that play the lunchroom are within a few blocks of each other, which is why the neighbourhood reads as a single set even though none of it is one.
Brooklyn is deliberately positioned as the opposite pole. The Humphrey loft is written as a world away, and the show gets a lot of mileage out of a subway ride that in reality takes half an hour.
Main Gossip Girl Characters
Short version, so the locations make sense as you read them.
Serena van der Woodsen
Returns to Manhattan in the first episode after leaving without explanation, and spends six seasons trying to be someone other than her reputation.
Blair Waldorf
The Upper East Side's self-appointed ruler: Constance Billard, the Met steps, and a plan for every social situation.
Chuck Bass
Heir to the Bass hotel empire, which is why the Empire Hotel becomes his address and his personality.
Nate Archibald
Old New York money, a family name in trouble, and the least appetite of anyone for the world he was born into.
Dan Humphrey
The Brooklyn outsider commuting into a school and a social scene he does not belong to — the show's way in for the audience.
Jenny Humphrey
Dan's younger sister, who arrives wanting the Upper East Side and leaves having got a version of it.
Can You Visit the Gossip Girl Locations?
Yes, and most of them cost nothing. Grand Central, Central Park and Bethesda Terrace are open and free; the Met steps are a public staircase even if the museum is ticketed; the hotel courtyards can be walked into. The residential exteriors are private homes, so those are looked at from the pavement.
The difficulty is not access, it is distance and order — the addresses are spread from 42nd Street to 86th Street. If you would rather not work it out, our private tours in New York City cover the same route with a local guide, and you can also read what happens in the finale or the ten most iconic moments and where each was filmed before you go.