Seinfeld tourism is the sightseeing and exploration of real-life locations featured in the television series Seinfeld. Like Cosmo Kramer in "The Muffin Tops", you too can see the locations from the small screen with your own eyes.

Filming locations and places featured on the show

New York City

The diner "Tom's Restaurant"—the exterior shot of the restaurant was used in the show as the permanent meeting place of the main characters

• 1 H&H Bagels, 2239 Broadway, Upper West Side. The store where Kramer worked until 1985, and briefly again in 1997 after calling off his twelve-year strike (a raise in the minimum wage had made his salary demands moot), was right on the southwest corner of 80th St. and Broadway. Though that location closed in 2012, H&H Midtown Bagels East continues to do business under different ownership at 1551 Second Ave. between 80th and 81st Sts.  
• 2 John F. Kennedy International Airport, ☏ +1 718 244-4444. Where, while waiting to pick up Jerry from a flight coming in from St. Louis, George taunts a convict under police escort and Kramer confronts an old acquaintance who borrowed money from him 20 years ago and never repaid it — both with disastrous results. (updated Dec 2018)
• 3 LaGuardia Airport, LaGuardia Rd. and 94th St., East Elmhurst, Queens, ☏ +1 718 533-3400. Site of the Diplomat's Club, where Kramer made and then lost thousands of dollars betting on the arrival times of incoming flights (once putting up David Berkowitz's mail bag, a keepsake of Newman's, as collateral). (updated Dec 2018)
• 4 New York Public Library Main Branch, 476 Fifth Ave., Midtown South, ☏ +1 917 275-6975. M & Th-Sa 10AM-6PM, Tu-W 10AM-8PM. Where Jerry meets Lieutenant Joe Bookman, an ironically named "library cop" who dresses him down for checking out Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer in 1971 and never returning it — and where Kramer meets Marion, a librarian with whom he kindles a forbidden love affair. (updated Dec 2018)
• 5 The Original Soupman, 259A W. 55th St., Hell's Kitchen, ☏ +1 212 956-0900. M-Sa 11AM-8PM, Su 11AM-7PM. The "Soup Nazi" was a real-life person, Ali Yeganeh — and by all accounts, the experience at his restaurant was more or less exactly how it was depicted in the seventh-season episode of the same name. Yeganeh has always resented the fame (or notoriety) that his portrayal on Seinfeld brought him, but after the original restaurant closed in 2004, he somewhat reluctantly parlayed it to relaunch his business as a chain that now counts four locations across the Northeast (including the original).  
• 6 Queensboro Plaza Station, 27th St. and Queens Plaza, Long Island City, Queens. Supposedly the home of the best gyros in the New York City subway system — the tzatziki sauce from which stained one of the issues of Frank Costanza's beloved TV Guide magazine collection.  
• 7 Russian Orthodox Cathedral of the Transfiguration of Our Lord, 228 N. 12th St., Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Stand-in for the Latvian Orthodox church where George attempts to convert to win back a woman who left him, and Kramer discovers his kavorka, almost tempting a clergywoman into giving up her faith. (updated Dec 2018)
• 8 Tom's Restaurant, 2880 Broadway, Morningside Heights, ☏ +1 212 864-6137, info@tomsrestaurant.net. Tu-Th 7AM-1PM, F-M 24 hours. Repurposed by the show as Monk's Cafe, the gang's favorite hangout. Outside the Seinfeld universe, it's best known as the setting for Suzanne Vega's 1987 hit song, "Tom's Diner".  
• 9 West Side YMCA, 5 W. 63rd St., Upper West Side, ☏ +1 212 912-2600. M-F 5AM-11PM, Sa 7AM-8PM, Su 8AM-8PM. In the men's locker room, Jerry meets his idol, former New York Mets player Keith Hernandez — who goes on to woo Elaine and get confronted by Kramer and Newman, who accuse him of spitting on them after a crucial game in the 1987 World Series. 
• 10 Yankee Stadium, 161st St. and River Ave., The Bronx. Home of the New York Yankees, George's employer during the sixth, seventh, and most of the eighth season. The Yankee Stadium where George worked was torn down in 2009-10 and is now a park; the baseball team now plays in a new building on the other side of 161st St., also called Yankee Stadium.  

Southern California

• 11 CBS Studio Center, 4024 Radford Ave., Studio City, ☏ +1 818 655-5000. This is where the majority of the show was filmed, including interior scenes in Jerry's apartment, Monk's Cafe, workplaces, shops, etc. Filming was on Stage 19 for the first three seasons, and on the much larger Stage 9 thereafter, as the number of different sets (and the popularity of the show) had grown substantially. In addition, many exterior scenes were filmed on the "New York Street" set between Stages 14 and 15. (updated Dec 2018)
• 12 Paramount Studios, 5555 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, ☏ +1 323 956-5000. Another studio with a "New York Street" set that was used occasionally for Seinfeld. Unlike CBS Studios, they offer a two-hour tour where you can see the sets for yourself. (updated Dec 2018)
• 13 The Shelley, 757 S. New Hampshire Ave., Los Angeles. This old brownstone apartment building in L.A.'s Koreatown wouldn't look out of place on the other coast — and indeed, it was the stand-in for exterior shots of Jerry's Upper West Side apartment. 

Other places related to Seinfeld

• 14 Jerry's Famous Deli, 12655 Ventura Blvd., Studio City, California, ☏ +1 818 980-4245. Su-Th 8AM-1AM, F-Sa 8AM-3AM. After five days of writing, rehearsing and filming, the cast of Seinfeld were famous for ending their workweek at the Studio City location of this famous chain of New York-style Jewish delis, eating, talking, and joking together late into the night. Ask the staff and (if it's not too busy) you can see their favorite booth, now marked with a plaque.  
• 15 National Museum of American History, Washington, D.C. A museum with displays of American cultural history, among them the original puffy shirt which character-Jerry wore on The Today Show, designed by Kramer's low-talking fashion designer girlfriend.  
• 16 The Town Hall, 123 W. 43rd St., Theater District, ☏ +1 212 997-6661. The real-life Jerry Seinfeld did a stand-up performance here on September 10, 1988. Unbeknownst to him, in the audience were several executives from NBC invited by Seinfeld's manager, George Shapiro, who'd written them a letter several weeks earlier: "Call me a crazy guy, but I feel that Jerry Seinfeld will soon be doing a series on NBC". (This was later reflected in the Season 3 episode "The Pitch", where Jerry's TV alter ego was approached by fictional NBC president Russell Dalrymple after a comedy set.) (updated Dec 2018)
• 17 Westway Diner, 614 Ninth Ave., Hell's Kitchen, ☏ +1 212 582-7661. Daily 6AM-1AM. The place where, in late 1988, Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David met over lunch to sketch out the premise for the TV sitcom that NBC executives had just offered him: not a "show about nothing", as others would soon dub it, but a sitcom about how minuscule events in the everyday life of a stand-up comedian inspire the material in his act. (This was the inspiration for the scene in Monk's Cafe in the third-season episode "The Pitch", where a conversation between Jerry and George about salsa led to the idea. In fact, it's often thought that the Westway, more than Tom's, was the true inspiration for Monk's.) (updated Dec 2018)