10 Shows To Watch To Get A Feel Of New York

Dreaming of moving to New York? These are some of the best shows to watch if you want to see what life's like in the big NYC!

To visit New York City is an experience within itself. If you’re in love with the idea of the city that never sleeps, then these are the best shows to watch to get the full NYC experience.

1. Friends

Not only is this iconic show set in Greenwich Village, but every few episodes there is a scene of Washington Square Park that looks like the view from GCASL. We see scenes from their local coffee shop, The Lorrell Lortel Theater, the Pierre Hotel, and the Solow Building–all prominent NYC sites. We get common New York scenarios like calling for a taxi, shopping, looking for roommates, ordering pizza, going to museums, having to work at a coffee shop, among so much more.

2. The Carrie Diaries

Carrie goes to some local high school in Connecticut but then gets an internship in Manhattan with a law firm. Like everyone who is new to New York, everything seems so perfect for Carrie and leaves her wide-eyed. She goes to nightclubs, shopping and just walks around Manhattan and realizes that New York is for her just like many of us will.

3. Gossip Girl

While the New York we are used to isn’t as extravagant as the one in Gossip Girl, there are still some things that are relatable. Like Blair, we can easily go to the MET and just sit on the stairs. We can go visit Grand Central Station and the Empire State building. Or we can just watch all the bad, bad decisions these rich kids make and see how much they look down upon Brooklyn.

4. Brooklyn 99

Brooklyn seems far, but it is just a few steps from NYU and it really isn’t as bad as Gossip Girl makes it out to be. In Brooklyn 99, you get to see a police precinct and the issues faced by everyday New Yorkers. While a lot of the show is inside the precinct, you still have scenes with food carts, street dancers, the subway, and the New York traffic.

5. Girl Meets World

While Girl Meets World might not be as popular or as successful as Boy Meets World, it still shows New York. There are rides on the subways, homeless people in the stations, high school tragedies, and a coffee shop to hang out in. It really had cute scenes of the streets of New York with lots of cars and even more people rushing by.

6. Two Broke Girls

We are all college students and we are all pretty much broke. Max and Caroline are too and throughout the show, we see them try to raise enough money to open their dream cupcake shop. We see them dealing with rude customers, perverted coworkers, almost getting robbed, and a lot of setbacks—stuff we will probably encounter at one point or another in our life here in the city.

7. How I Met Your Mother

This classic, hilarious show has the characters going around New York as Ted tells his kid the story of how he met their mother. We see classic New York sites like the Empire State Building and the long, long wait needed to get to get to the 86th-floor deck. We see characters riding the LIRR which many of us have taken to get to Long Island. There are scenes with a character jumping the turnstile in the train station (something we should definitely never do), eating at Japanese restaurants, going to the American Natural History Museums, and ending up in the wrong class and only realizing 14 minutes later.

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8. Wizards of Waverly Place

This show might be targeted towards a younger audience but is a must-see because it deals with problems we all went through just a few years ago in high school. While we might not be wizards, we can relate to the scenes set in New York showing friends fighting, annoying brothers, fast food restaurants, shopping sales, roommate problems, ex-boyfriends and part-time jobs.

9. White Collar

Hopefully, none of us are con artists on the run from the FBI, so we might not relate to the plot. But, there are many scenes that show the city. We see Central Park and many places in it like the Bethesda Fountain. We also see Pershing Square, Grand Army Plaza, Trinity Church, JFK Airport, an the Brooklyn Bridge. We see guys in suits, skyscrapers, awkward run-ins, super early calls, and unlikely friendships.

10. Steinfeld

This 90s sitcom is based in New York. From adventures on the subway, pastry shops, the West Side YMCA, Rockefeller Center, Yankee Stadium, to other places in downtown and midtown, we get to see Jerry encounter everyday problems that most of us will probably face. Maybe we will find an interesting group of friends like the one Jerry has to help face life in the city.