The one where reality bites

Queenie Shaikh loved 'Friends' and 'Gossip Girl' as a teen, imagining a New York of cupcakes at Magnolia Bakery and breakfast at The Met, but does that Manhattan still exist?

- Queenie Shaikh

“I’ve wanted to live in New York ever since Gossip Girl aired,” I overheard a woman my age confide wistfully to her partner on the steps of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The steps were packed with people trying to find the exact spot where Blair and Serena had their daily ritual breakfast yoghurt. Yellow taxis whizzed by, the smell of overpriced, freshly baked bagels from a nearby cart filled the air, and I smoothed down my red jacket for a photo I’d mentally choreographed years ago. I wasn’t the only one trying to relive a scene from a show that defined our teenage years.

For millennials raised on a diet of Gossip Girl, Friends, Sex and the City and The Devil Wears Prada, NYC was the dream - a stylish, fast-paced fantasy where careers were built in heels, friendships over brunch, and meet-cutes in bodegas. Now, over a decade since my favourite shows ended and well into adulthood, I finally made my NYC pop culture trip - not just to sightsee, but to find out what’s real, what’s changed, and whether the New York seen on screen still exists. Spoiler: it does - just with an astronomical price tag, more queues, and only if you arrive with a healthy dose of self-awareness.

I was an impressionable teenager when Gossip Girl dropped. Like many others, I was quickly swept up by the image of the Upper East Side. I was borderline obsessed with breakfast at Sarabeth’s and enamoured by Blair Waldorf’s sass and impeccable fashion sense. In some ways, our lives overlapped - minus the boatload of generational wealth. We both attended private all-girls schools and applied to NYU. In Blair’s case, daddy pulled strings. In mine, no scholarship came through (despite having the grades). We also shared a love of headbands - although these days, my scalp protests more than it used to.