Blake Edwards’ feature film adaptation of Truman Capote’s 1958 novella, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, hit screens in 1961 and eventually became the movie most associated with actress Audrey Hepburn.

Co-starring George Peppard, Patricia Neal, Mickey Rooney and Buddy Ebsen, this bittersweet story of the iconic, doe-eyed Holly Golightly uses New York City as a chic backdrop, like a vibrant, fashion-show runway. And by depicting the city as a colorful dreamland, the movie manages to perfectly marry the on-location footage with the Hollywood recreations (which are aplenty).

Tiffany & Co.

The movie opens at dawn, looking south on Fifth Avenue from 57th Street.

 

A cab pulls in front of Tiffany & Company at 727 Fifth Avenue, where Holly Golightly steps out.

 

The eccentric café society girl slowly walks towards the luxury jewelry store.

 

She gazes at the display window while snacking on a breakfast pastry.

 

Holly slowly turns the corner and strolls east on E 57th Street.

 

 

Almost all of these filming locations have been identified for some time now, so very little legwork was needed when I began researching this movie. Of course, Fifth Avenue’s Tiffany & Co. (colloquially known as Tiffany’s) has long been a well-known landmark in New York City, thanks in no small part to its alluring depiction this film.

The inside of Tiffany’s, from the 1961 film (top) compared to how it looks today (bottom).

This ten-story retail building in Midtown Manhattan has served as Tiffany & Co.’s flagship store since its completion in 1940 and has been featured in several other films, most notably in the gritty drama, Midnight Cowboy. Designed in a “conservative modern” style with a facade made up of granite and limestone, the building features a 9-foot statue of the mythological figure Atlas which appears above Audrey Hepburn when she first arrives at the store.

Also featured in Breakfast at Tiffany’s in a later scene is the building’s first-floor, 8,400 sq ft salesroom, which has long been a popular tourist destination.

From 2016, the first floor of Tiffany’s on Fifth Avenue, before it received its major facelift in 2023.

It’s hard to know how much this movie has impacted Tiffany’s popularity, but the luxury retail store has clearly embraced its association, adding a cafe in 2017 to give customers the opportunity to actually have “breakfast at Tiffany’s.” (But be warned: a simple meal can easily cost you upwards of $100 per person.)

Then in 2023, they added something called, “The Audrey Experience” — an immersive exhibit that takes visitors inside the movie, and features a replica of Holly Golightly’s Givenchy dress.

Audrey relaxing between takes at Tiffany’s, clad in her iconic black dress.

The new exhibit was added during a nearly three year renovation of the building, which was completed in April of 2023. This transformation project involved a complete redesign of the store’s interior spaces, including the installation of floor-to-ceiling plasma digital screens on the main floor, in lieu of windows.

The multimillion dollar renovation also involved work on the exterior, which included the removal of a three-story rooftop addition from 1980, and replacing it with a new, similarly-sized glass enclosure. This ambitious update necessitated lifting a massive crane onto the building’s roof — only the fourth time in the city’s history where that had occurred.

From November 2020,  a large giant 105-ton crane lifts a smaller 66-ton crane onto the roof of Tiffany & Co’s flagship store.

When the main store reopened on April 27, 2023, Tiffany & Co hosted a lavish, two-day party to celebrate the event, catering to their target clientele, who were described by CEO Anthony Ledru as the “ultra-elite.”

The Apartment Building

Later that day, a taxi cab pulls in front of 169 E 71st Street.

 

The building’s new tenant, Paul Varjak, steps out of the cab.

 

Inside Holly’s apartment, shot on Stage 9 at Paramount Studios in Hollywood, Paul watches as his new, free-spirited neighbor gets ready to go out.

 

A little later, the newly-acquainted neighbors exit the building.

 

On her way to visit a “friend” at Sing-Sing prison, Holly hails a cab by loudly whistling.

 

Looking east on 71st Street, a cab approaches the pair.

 

A wealthy older woman named Emily Eustace Failenson steps out of the car.

 

She is introduced to Holly as Paul’s “decorator.”

 

When I went to this Breakfast location in 2017 and 2023 to take modern pictures, I was surprised to see other people there taking pictures as well. I guess I wasn’t expecting to see anyone there, considering the movie is over sixty years old and the location is on a nondescript residential street that’s sort of off the beaten path.

Audrey Hepburn takes a break on the camera dolly on E 71st Street.

But it turns out, Holly and Paul’s apartment building is a pretty popular filming location destination. It’s even got a pin that pops up on Google Maps, which is something they don’t do very often — the only other two I know of in NYC are the Ghostbusters firehouse and the Friends apartment building.

A view of 169 E 71st Street, during and after its renovation.

The main reason I went to the location two times is because when I first went there in 2017, the townhouse was being renovated and was partially obscured by construction apparatus. When I returned six years later, I was pleased to see a fully restored building that looked a lot like it did in this film.

When it came to the interior of the apartment building, I knew it was all done on a set. However, I also knew production used a few different stages for filming, and I had a hankering to figure out what was filmed where.

Fortunately, I was able to dig up a November 7, 1960 article in the Corsicana Daily Sun that indicated that the apartment and  hallway sets were located on Stage 9.

 

Sing Sing Prison

The following week, Paul and Holly take a commuter train north, passing the Carver Houses at E 102nd Street and Park Avenue.  

 

The pair go to Sing Sing Prison on Correctional Facility Road, Ossining, NY to visit crime boss, Sally Tomato.

 

The establishing shot of a commuter train traveling upstate from the city was fairly easy to locate since I figured it was the Metro North Railroad (formally the New York Central Railroad) whose elevated tracks run along Park Avenue in upper Manhattan.

After cruising around Park Avenue in Google’s 3D Satellite View, I found matching buildings at the Carver Houses public housing development near East 102nd Street.

Using Google’s 3D satellite view, traveling north along the Metro North line in East Harlem, with the Craver Houses on the left.

Since it looked like a pretty high angle shot of the train, I thought getting a matching modern picture was going to be close to impossible. But after studying the layout of the area, I realized the camera was probably mounted a few blocks south of 102nd where the parallel streets start angling above the tracks, offering a naturally high-angle vantage point.

When it came to the establishing shot of Sing Sing prison, I could tell by the structure and surrounding landscape that it was, in fact, filmed  on location in Ossining, NY. It just became a matter of figuring out which watch tower was featured in the shot.

Going back to Google’s 3D View, I determined they filmed the east wall of the prison along Correctional Facility Road, not too far from Holla Hose Company No. 5  on the next street over.

Google’s 3D satellite view of Sing Sing’s east tower (in the center of the image) along with Holla Hose Company No. 5 (directly below it).

Once I had an exact fix on the location, I wasn’t very confident I’d be able to match the shot with a modern photo. I could tell the angle used in the film was fairly high, which I assumed was achieved using a crane or some raised scaffolding. However, once I realized there was a small embankment to the east of  Correctional Facility Road, I figured the crew simply filmed from the top of it, which also gave me hope that I’d be able to replicate the shot.

While this was an encouraging development, I still had a few reservations. For one, I figured I would most likely have to go onto private property to get to the same spot used in the film, and generally speaking, scurrying around the perimeter of a maximum-security prison can be a bit risky.

After studying a map of the area, I determined that the crew probably set up the camera near where Holla Hose Company No. 5 was located, which was fortunate. Of all the property owners along that embankment, I figured the people at a fire station might be most amenable to letting me take some pictures.

In the end, it was sort of a moot point, as the station happened to be closed the day I visited it, allowing me relatively free access.

I didn’t really love the idea of entering property without permission, but it was a pretty quick and harmless excursion. The fire company had a small, well-maintained backyard behind the building with easy access, and a decent, unobstructed view of the prison. So I was able to take a series of pictures and be on my way within minutes.

 

Doc Golightly

After Paul exits his apartment at 169 E 71st Street, he is followed by a mysterious older gentleman (Buddy Ebsen).

 

While at the Conservatory Water in Central Park, Paul gets the sense he’s being tailed.

 

He walks towards a snack bar at the south end of the pond.

 

He then walks southwest away from the pond, followed by the mysterious stranger in the cowboy hat.

 

Paul ends up sitting on a bench near the Naumburg Bandshell. 

 

The mystery man sits next to him and tells him that his name is Doc Golightly, showing an old family photo of Holly.

 

At first, Paul thinks Doc is Holly’s father but soon finds out that he is her estranged husband.

 

Doc asks Paul if he will “be his friend” and help him reunite with his wife.

 

Paul decides to take Doc to Holly, leading him south towards the Mall.

 

No real mystery as to where this sequence took place  — both the Conservatory Water and the Naumburg Bandshell are Central Park landmarks I’m very familiar with.

George Peppard reads a newspaper while on break at the Bandshell.

While there are several bodies of water throughout the park, Conservatory Water is most easily identifiable by the Kerbs Memorial Boathouse, with its distinctive red bricks and Georgian-style copper roof.

A 2022 view of the Conservatory Water with the Kerbs Memorial Boathouse located on the east side.

Interestingly, even though the boathouse looks like it dates back to the 19th century, it only dates back to 1954, when it replaced a small wooden structure that was built there around the turn of the last century.

A 1947 view of the model boat pond, featuring a small wooden boathouse situated on the site where the present Kerbs Boathouse now stands.

In addition to the Kerbs Memorial Boathouse, this scene also featured a small snack bar located on the south shore of the pond. I couldn’t find much info about the small structure, but since its architectural design is similar to that of the boathouse, my guess is that it was built in the mid-1950s as well.

An illustration of the original Conservatory concept proposed by Vaux and Olmstead around 1864.

As I’ve mentioned in other posts, the reason this area is called Conservatory Water is because the original plan for this site was to construct a large glass greenhouse to serve as a formal garden, which would include a hard-edged reflecting pool.

However, due to a lack in funds, all that was ever constructed was the Conservatory’s water piece — an oval pond called “Ornamental Water” which originally had a more naturalistic quality to it. The pond had winding, irregular shores, bounded with rocky banks, and it had around 18 inches of soil deposited above the cement bottom to make it look less man-made. Partly inspired by the Grand Basin in Paris’ Luxembourg Gardens, the Ornamental Water almost immediately became the premier site for model yacht racing in NYC.

Toy yacht enthusiasts prepare for a boat race at  Conservatory Water, c 1910.

When this racing first began in the park, the model yachts had no electronic mechanisms on board which could alter their course, so all adjustments to the sails and rudders had to be made before the boat’s release. It basically came down to setting the boat into the pond, pushing it towards the finish line with a stick and hoping for the best. That being said, as early as 1885, a boat had been developed that could be controlled by a wireless radio system, even though it wasn’t put into practice until the 1930s when model yachting was at its peak.

During this period, The New York Times would regularly cover the races at Conservatory Water, with one 1935 headline declaring five thousand persons gathered to watch 500 “diminutive vessels” compete for prizes in the “Conservatory Lake” in Central Park.

Even today, this tradition lives on, where model racers compete every Saturday morning on Conservatory Water.

It might be noted that this storyline involving Doc Golightly ends with him getting on a bus, which clearly was not shot in NYC, but was instead shot on a Hollywood backlot (I’ll talk more about this below).

 

Walking Around the City

Paul and Holly stroll east on W 57th Street towards Fifth Avenue.

 

They stop at the crosswalk where Holly admits she’s never gone walking in New York in the morning.

 

Holly takes Paul into Tiffany’s, entering from fifth Avenue.

 

She acclaims how wonderful the chic store is.

 

Walking around the main floor, Paul offers to buy her a gift, but she insists that he can’t spend more than ten dollars.

 

After ordering an engraving at Tiffany’s, the pair reach the corner of Fifth and 41st Street where they decide to go into the public library across the street.

 

They then go into a corner shop, located on Paramount’s New York backlot in Hollywood, where they steal a pair of halloween masks. 

 

Most websites had identified the exteriors of Tiffany’s and the 42nd Street Library, but no one had specifically identified the corner where the two characters wait to cross the street. Turns out, it was simply across from Tiffany’s on Fifth Avenue, so it made perfectly logical sense.

Sadly, a lot of the buildings that appear behind them have either been torn down or obstructed by large skyscraper additions, but you can still see a few bits and pieces that still match up today.

As to the interiors of Tiffany’s and the library, they were both sets built on the Paramount stages in Hollywood. Although, as I indicated earlier, the first few interior shots of Tiffany’s were authentic, filmed on location inside the store’s first floor showroom. (And I must say, when I visited the bougie store this earlier month, the staff were extremely nice and accommodating, allowing me to take photos of the ground floor.)

Of course, it was pretty obvious that both the interior and exterior of the red corner shop where Paul and Holly steal the masks was also filmed at Paramount Studios on what I suspected was their “New York” backlot.

Unfortunately, in the summer of 1983, a big fire swept through the Paramount Studio backlot, destroying the New York Street area. Several adjacent soundstages were also in danger of being engulfed in flames, but thanks in part to the efforts of the crew of Star Trek III who were working on set that day, the stages survived the blaze with only some minor damage.

With the old New York set gone and replaced with a new one, finding the exact filming locations of the studio scenes from Breakfast at Tiffany’s (including the corner shop) was a little difficult.

Luckily, I stumbled upon a 1971 episode of the TV series Mission: Impossible that featured a lot of footage of the old New York backlot, including what looked like the corner shop from Breakfast. (And continuing with the Star Trek theme, the episode happened to guest-star Captain Kirk himself, William Shatner.)

A still from Breakfast at Tiffany’s (left) compared to a still from the “Encore” episode of Mission: Impossible (right) featuring the same corner building.

One helpful thing, the episode included a long panning shot that showed the layout of several streets, giving me a basic sense of where the corner shop was situated. Then, after I found a nice aerial view of the old New York backlot on RetroWeb, I was able to match it up with the panning shot from Mission: Impossible. 

A mid-1970s aerial view of Paramount’s New York set compared to a composite of a panning shot from Mission: Impossible (with red markings indicating matching buildings, including the corner shop marked “A”).

Finally, I lined up the 1970s aerial photo of the backlot with a modern Google satellite image of the same area so I could see what building now sits where the corner shop from Breakfast used to be.

While the new streets are not exactly aligned with the old ones, they seem to be pretty close. So it turns out, the shop was approximately located on what is now the northwest corner of Avenue H and Leonard Nimoy Way. (Ooo boy, another Star Trek connection!)

 

Public Library

After picking up the engraved ring from Tiffany’s, Paul calls Holly’s apartment from a phone booth on the southwest corner of 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue, but gets no answer.

 

He then thinks he sees Holly in front of the 42nd Street Library.

 

He runs up the steps from 42nd Street and grabs the woman in front of the main entrance, but it turns out not to be Holly.

While identifying the library was easy,  I wasn’t one hundred percent sure where the phone booths were, since the editing in the film made it seem like they were at a different location. But the booths were, in fact, right next to the library’s 42nd Street steps.

One thing I won’t sure of at first was whether that row of silver phone booths was real or not.. Even though there were tons of payphones in city back then, it wasn’t uncommon for productions to bring their own prop booth and place it wherever they liked. I assume the main reason was to give the director better control of the composition, or make it easier to block the scene.

But as evidenced by this 1970s photo I found on Twitter, those booths on 42nd Street were, indeed, authentic. Sadly, they, as well as almost every other payphone in NYC, are now gone.

 

 

Sitting by a Fountain

After finding out Holly is moving to South America the next day, Paul spends one last evening with her, walking on Park Avenue and E 52nd Street.

 

They then sit on the south wall of Seagram Plaza at 375 Park Avenue. 

 

Sitting by the fountain, Holly admits that she’ll miss New York, so Paul desperately tries to convince her to stay. 

 

This, like most of the other locations from Breakfast, had already been identified when I began researching this film. It was shot outside of the Seagram Building, which isn’t as famous as some of the other buildings in New York, but has been featured in a ton of movies.

Established just a couple years before this movie was made, the Seagram Building is an early example of the functionalist aesthetic and corporate modern architecture.

An overhead view of the Seagram Building and Plaza, taken around the same time this movie was made.

To read more about the Seagram Building, see my post on Scrooged, which used it as the headquarters of the fictional IBC TV network where Bill Murray’s character worked.

 

Released From Jail

Holly and Paul are taken into custody at the 19th precinct station, which was really at the Paramount Studios backlot on Leonard Nimoy Way near stage 32.  

 

After being questioned by the police about her relationship with Sally Tomato, Holly is released on bail from the Woman’s Detention Center at 10 Greenwich Avenue.

 

She puts on her sunglasses and quietly exits the building, which is now the Jefferson Market Garden

 

Outside on Greenwich Avenue, Paul gives Holly a big hug next to a waiting cab.

 

This is the only location from the movie that (as far as I can tell) no one has ever identified. While I could tell that the initial shot of Holly and Paul being brought into a police station was a Hollywood set, the part where Holly is released from a jail looked like a real New York location.

Unfortunately, you never get a clear view of the jail in the scene. You do see part of the buildings across the street, but not a whole lot. So, I decided to see if I could dig up any behind-the-scenes photographs which might offer some new details. And believe it or not, that’s exactly what I found — a vertical picture of Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard with a clear view of a store sign across the street that read, DORELL CASUALS.

From there, I went looking for an address. It took a little longer than I expected, but I eventually found a listing in a 1967 guidebook called, The New York Spy: A Most Personal Guide to the Empire City. The address given was 7 Greenwich Avenue, which I quickly realized was across the street from the former New York Women’s House of Detention on the corner of Greenwich and Sixth Avenue.

From the 1930s, looking northwest at the former New York Women’s House of Detention and the Sixth Avenue El.

At this point, I was feeling pretty confident that I nailed the location, and yet, I still wanted to confirm it with some visual proof. So, the first thing I did was look up old tax pics of the block, but I couldn’t really spot any matching details. Then I remembered that a brief scene from Woody Allen’s 1977 movie, Annie Hall, took place on that same block — so it was off to the archives!

Once I took a still from Annie Hall and brightened it up, I could see the matching X design in between the storefronts, making me certain I got the right place.

When it came to the police station, I wasn’t too concerned in finding its exact location since I knew it was a set on the Paramount backlot that has since been replaced. But thanks to all the legwork I did to find the earlier corner store location, I was able to get a fix on the police station location pretty quickly.

I just went back to that Mission: Impossible episode and could see the police station building was one block west of the corner shop.

A still from Breakfast at Tiffany’s, compared to a still from Mission: Impossible, with a red box indicating the matching police station building (the corner shop can be seen on the far right in the bottom picture)

After this scene, the rest of the movie was shot in Hollywood using sets and rear projection, including the tearful ending that took place in a rain-soaked alleyway.

While most people would consider Breakfast at Tiffany’s a classic film, there was actually very little faith in this project in the beginning. Much of the initial resistance came from author Truman Capote, whose 1958 novella provided the basic story for the film. He hated everything about the production, most notably in the casting of Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly. Apparently, when Capote agreed to a screen adaptation of his book, he did it under the assumption that it would be a vehicle for Marilyn Monroe.

While I agree that Capote’s original story would’ve been more suited for Monroe, it’s hard to deny the star-making power of Audrey Hepburn in this film version. Although, apparently she too had reservations about her portrayal, as early test previews didn’t fare well. But in the end, with a full Henry Mancini soundtrack laid in, Breakfast at Tiffany’s became a grand success.

Of course, while Breakfast at Tiffany’s is still beloved today, its one big blemish has to be the casting of Mickey Rooney as the Japanese landlord, complete with buckteeth and a stereotypical accent.

Over the decades, this portrayal has been subject to increasing protest. And while I agree with the criticism, my biggest problem with Rooney is he’s simply not funny, and his over-the-top character seems completely out of place with the rest of the movie. But fortunately his parts are minimal, and I usually just fast forward through his scenes.

But overall, Breakfast at Tiffany’s holds up as an essential part of cinema history, despite its drastic departure from the source material. In fact, it’s perhaps one of the best examples of Hollywood abandoning a faithful literary adaptation, and instead creating something wonderfully new that yields an unexpected evocation.

The film’s sweetened love story may not resemble anything in Capote’s detached, unromantic portrait of New York’s social scene, but Hepburn’s unique performance cuts through the cliches of that genre, making Breakfast at Tiffany’s the classic that it is — still inspiring folks to trek up to the Upper East Side to take pictures of Holly’s townhouse.