Maid In Manhattan | 2002

Find out the places in New York where 2002 romcom Maid In Manhattan was filmed, around Manhattan and in the Bronx.

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There's nothing in this Cinderella-ish romcom that can't be predicted beat-by-beat by the end of the opening credits but it's pleasantly enjoyable fluff kept afloat by an excellent cast.

Strangely, it began life as a John Hughes script, to star Hillary Swank, and naturally to be set in Chicago. Whatever Hughes thought of the finished product, the story is credited onscreen to Edmond Dantes – hero of The Count of Monte Cristo (described as "an intelligent, honest and loving man who turns bitter and vengeful after he is accused of a crime he did not commit"). Ouch.

Jennifer Lopez is Marisa, a lowly but ambitious housekeeping maid from the Bronx, who works in a posh Manhattan hotel. Yes, this really is the Bronx. The apartment where she lives, separated from her husband, with her ten-year-old son Ty (Tyler Pose), is 59 Clifford Place in the Mt Hope district of the Bronx.

Marisa and Ty catch the bus at the top of that striking set of steps at the eastern end of Clifford Place on Walton Avenue. It looks like the steps have been undergoing a substantial makeover since 2002.

Marisa drops Ty off at his school which is PS 33 Timothy Dwight, 2424 Jerome Avenue, alongside the elevated IRT Jerome Avenue Line, north in Fordham Heights, in the Bronx, and takes the subway into Manhattan, exiting at East 51st Street and Lexington Avenue for her work at the 'Hotel Beresford'.

There's no great mystery here. Anyone who knows New York will instantly recognise this as the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, 301 Park Avenue between East 49th and East 50th Streets. The famous hotel is also featured in Coming To America, Woody Allen’s Hannah And Her Sisters, Wes Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums, Scent Of A Woman and Analyze This.

It's not all the real Waldorf-Astoria though. Taking advantage of filming in the Bronx, the 'Beresford's' employees' locker room is that of the Alumni Gymnasium of Bronx Community College, 2155 University Avenue, Bronx. The screen-friendly college campus has been a screen regular, having appeared in the likes of Sophie’s Choice (1982), the 1999 remake of The Thomas Crown Affair and A Beautiful Mind (2001).

Disbelief needs to be suspended just a little for the film's main conceit when Marisa, persuaded to try on a guest's expensive Dolce & Gabbana outfit, is caught by another guest, ambitious politician Chris Marshall (Ralph Fiennes) who's running for senate.

Yes, he's instantly smitten and, mistaking her for one of the hotel's many socialites invites Marisa, and Ty of course, to join him walking his dog in Central Park.

We get all the Central Park tourist features, a stroll along The Mall, a moment at The Rocks between 63rd and 64th Streets to avoid the intrusive paparazzi intrigued by the "mystery woman", and a visit to see the cute penguins in the Children's Zoo. This is where things get complicated when Chris invites Marisa to a posh charity dinner.

The stakes are raised further when a, fortunately unrecognisable, photo appears in the press. Chris's agent Jerry (Stanley Tucci) furiously confronts Chris in the smart surrounds of the three-story steakhouse with floor-to-ceiling windows, Del Frisco's Double Eagle Steakhouse, 1221 Ave of the Americas. Yes, that's in the McGraw-Hill Building which served as the offices of 'Runway' magazine in The Devil Wears Prada and The Devil Wears Prada 2.

Marisa doesn't get to see the handwritten invitation to lunch that Chris leaves in the 'Beresford's' suite but while being driven through town, he glimpses her on Park Avenue at East 40th Street where he asks her what's going on.

Marisa has no intention of being his plus-one at the fancy function but her concerned workmates talk her into turning up, if only to break off the potential romance before it goes too far.

Becoming the plot's fairy godmothers, her friends call in favours from their connections in Manhattan's service industries, Marisa is decked out in the city's finest – Harry Winston and all – at the Saks Fifth Avenue flagship store, 611 5th Avenue.

She duly turns up in full glam at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 5th Avenue at East 82nd Street on the East Side, where the black-tie bash is being held at the Temple of Dendur exhibit, housed in the Sackler Wing. The reconstructed Egyptian temple is a natural for the screen, also being featured in When Harry Met Sally…, I Am Legend and Changing Lanes and is one of the New York landmarks glimpsed in Woody Allen’s Manhattan.

In true Cinderella style Marisa sneaks away from the ball but this prince, obviously having read the story, follows her. In spite of her best intentions, Chris's earnest charm tempts her into an unplanned night together.

It's now that the 'Beresford's' security cameras finally reveal Marisa's deception and she's promptly dismissed.

When Chris seeks her out, they duck into the little garden alongside St Bartholomew's Church on Park Avenue at East 50th Street, where Marisa attempts to explain the whole debacle. You might remember St Bartholomew's as the site of the non-wedding at the end of 1981's Arthur.

All seems to be over between them and Chris clears up speculation with a statement to the press in a governmental looking setting, which is actually the lobby of Brooklyn Borough Hall, 209 Joralemon Street at Court Street in Brooklyn.

That would be it, as Marisa moves on and gets a new job at The Roosevelt Hotel, 45 East 45th Street at Madison Avenue in Midtown.

But in one of those wonderful Hollywood coincidences, who should turn up at the Roosevelt for a rally but Chris Marshall, who holds a packed press conference in the hotel's Terrace Ballroom. It falls to Ty, plucking up all his courage among the throng of reporters, to ask the campaigning politician if he thinks people should be given a second chance.

It's not the most egregious spoiler to reveal that, yes, Chris does believe in second chances. Cue happy ending montage.

The Roosevelt is no stranger to the screen, having appeared in Boiler Room, The French Connection, Malcolm X, Presumed Innocent, Quiz Show, and as the fictitious ‘Dolphin Hotel’ in 1408 but, most famously, its Grand Ballroom is where Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) delivered his decade-defining ‘Greed is good’ speech in Oliver Stone's 1987 Wall Street.

I actually stayed at the Roosevelt quite a few years ago and, infuriatingly not realising its screen history at the time, neglected to take photos.

Sadly, the hotel closed in 2020, since when it was used for a couple of years as temporary migrant accommodation . It currently stands empty and its future undecided. It's hard to believe that such a large, centrally-situated hotel in the heart of Manhattan can't return to its former status.