This week on And Just Like That…, Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) is putting everything in her Upper East Side apartment in boxes. She’s purchased a fantastic new four bedroom on Gramercy Park and sold the prewar studio fans have known and loved since Sex and the City first premiered in 1998 to the jewelry designer living downstairs. On next week’s season finale, she’ll be hosting a dinner party at her old pad, which she’s calling “The Last Supper,” where her estranged friend Samantha (Kim Cattrall) will no doubt be making her long-awaited phone call cameo. The impetus for the move is her rekindled relationship with her furniture-designer former fiancé Aidan Shaw (John Corbett), who primarily lives in an old brick farmhouse in Norfolk, Virginia, and refuses to even set foot inside Carrie’s longtime home after the past heartbreak that occurred there (more on that later).
HBO has yet to announce if And Just Like That… is getting a third season, but something about the way the writers have Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) awkwardly wedge a mention of Skipper (remember him?) into conversion this week makes me think this show’s days are numbered. And, watching Aidan cry (spoiler alert) from Virginia about his son on the phone with Carrie while she sits in the bare, high-ceilinged pad she thinks they are going to share part-time, I couldn’t help but wonder if the creators of the show are going to thwart her best-laid plans and have the whole thing end with her leaving New York City for good to be with him. Blasphemy, in my opinion.
With a series that has been a tad disjointed, it’s hard to make predictions, but it does seem like we might be saying our final goodbye to the Carrie Bradshaw apartment, where countless iconic moments took place, from the death of her MacBook to Jack Berger’s infamous breakup Post-it. Originally built at New York City’s Silvercup Studios, with the stoop at 63 Perry Street in the West Village used for the exterior, Carrie’s apartment, with its strange layout, has always been an extension of her and a refuge from the melee of New York City.
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Even when she finally marries Mr. Big (Chris Noth) at the end of Sex and the City: The Movie and moves in with him to a bigger, swankier apartment with the closet of her dreams, she keeps the dwelling as a place where she can retreat and write, sitting at her desk and staring out the window as she ponders. After Big’s death at the beginning of the reboot series, Carrie attempts to move into a boxy white Tribeca apartment with glass walls on all sides, but finds she is happier in the comfort of her prewar den, with its rarely used kitchen and walk-through closet.
As we wait to find out the fate of Carrie’s beloved pad, let’s take a look back at how the space has evolved through the years.
When Sex and the City premiered on June 6, 1998, Carrie was not living in the dwelling fans know and love today. The pilot episode, filmed before the show was officially picked up by HBO, shows Carrie in an apartment located above a coffee shop (at 960 Madison Avenue), with a neon green sign glowing outside her window. The space is in a state of disarray, with stacks of magazines and Chinese takeout containers littered everywhere. (In true Carrie fashion, she adds a touch of glamour with blue satin sheets.) The interiors are dated, with an old candle chandelier, a stained glass light fixture, and wainscoting on the door.
I’m not convinced that a young NYC writer could afford this place, but its shabbiness makes it a bit more realistic than her subsequent pad, something Chelsea Fairless and Lauren Garroni also noticed when looking back at the pilot for their Sex and the City–inspired podcast, Every Outfit. “Real New York It girls live in some degree of squalor,” one of them commented, and they have a point.
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By episode two of the series, the interior of Carrie’s home that we know and love begins to take shape, though her famous front stoop doesn’t appear until episode three. This home evolves slightly over time, but remains largely the same until the end of the series—give or take a few continuity errors.
Minty green walls, wood midcentury-modern furniture, books and magazines galore, and unabashed pattern mixing are all on display here—a reflection of Carrie. This iconic tableau full of flea market finds was created by longtime SATC production designer Jeremy Conway and set decorator Karin Holmes. Though the layout of the apartment doesn’t always make sense—it seems to change to suit the needs of the storyline—a few key pieces anchor Carrie’s space, like her floral Calvin Klein bedding (which you can still buy), her white Atomic Age–inspired lamp, the vintage chair she uses as a nightstand, and a strange vintage chaise with a swirly pattern.
Though Mr. Big was never really committed enough to leave his mark, Aidan has been influencing Carrie’s living space ever since their first meeting. In season three, episode five, Stanford Blatch (Willie Garson) drags Carrie downtown to Aidan’s furniture store after reading about it in The New York Times’ Sunday Styles section, and in her efforts to connect with him, she impulsively buys a club chair covered in 100-year-old leather that Aidan tells her he “stripped off an old railroad car seat.” The chair is originally priced at $3,800, but she manages to get a discount by telling Aidan she is a designer and wooing him. Of course, this was a lie, and Carrie pretending to be somebody she’s not is a theme that will run through her relationship with him.
The chair may be a bit clunky and masculine, but it is a cozy addition to Carrie’s apartment, which remains there even after their second breakup. (A recent Vogue piece examining Aidan’s design prowess declares his style to be bland, and we won’t argue, but I’m sure he is perfectly fine with that given the fact that he sold his brand to West Elm for a pretty penny.) Before their engagement crumbles toward the end of season four, Aidan purchases and moves into Carrie’s place, bringing with him manly deodorants, a George Foreman grill, and plans to combine her unit with the one next door. When she tells him she can’t marry him, she’s left with a hole in the wall above her bed and a letter from his lawyer saying she can purchase the apartment for the exact price he paid for it or vacate. Without Aidan, Carrie would probably still be renting.
Redecorating after a bad breakup is highly relatable, and that’s just what Carrie does in Sex and the City: The Movie after Mr. Big gets cold feet on their wedding day. With help from her assistant, Louise (Jennifer Hudson), Carrie swaps her warm midcentury wood pieces for white and mirrored furniture set against electric blue walls. There are rugs and throw pillows with damask-inspired patterns and a packed gallery wall behind the bed that really exemplifies the mawkish maximalism of the 2010s. Two parts glam and one part twee, the space makes sense for the era, but it is hideous.
“I think that was sort of a little bit of chasing the style of the time,” says And Just Like That… production designer Miguel López-Castillo, later telling me that Parker “did kind of leak out that she had never liked the blue apartment.” We don’t blame her.
When the time came to recreate Carrie’s apartment for And Just Like That… at Brooklyn’s Steiner Studios, continuity came second to nostalgia. Parker had kept some of Carrie’s vintage furniture in storage, and it can be seen back in its rightful place in the reboot.
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“Sarah Jessica is super, super involved in every element in that department. So it’s really almost like working with a private client and decorating a place. It’s very personal. She would bring elements that she likes for Carrie to put in the space,” López-Castillo says. The most obvious change to the space, aside from new madras curtains and quirky yellow paint on the shelves above her bed, is the wallpaper that covers most of the living room area. White with large blue carnations, the print is part of Parker’s line with Wallshoppe, which she created with her interior designer Eric Hughes.
Though I’m not the biggest fan of the bold print personally, I do think it screams Carrie Bradshaw. The perfect decor for the final era (maybe) of one of TV’s most iconic apartments.
