True Tales of ‘Sex and the City’

On June 6, 1998, HBO broadcast its first episode of “Sex and the City,” introducing the world to Carrie, Charlotte, Miranda and Samantha: four single women who conquered Manhattan.

Much has been written about how the show changed television, and its depiction of female friendships and sex. Less remarked upon is how the show spurred a generation of young, ambitious and single professionals to move to New York to chase their own “Sex and the City” dreams — whether that meant finding Mr. Big or sipping cosmopolitans in the Hamptons.

Just ask Jennifer Keishin Armstrong, 43, a writer who was living in suburban New Jersey with her fiancé. “I was watching ‘Sex and the City,’ and I just went, ‘Oh my God, there’s a whole thing I didn’t do yet,'” she said. “'I can’t live in New Jersey and get married now.'”

In 2001, she ditched the fiancé, moved into a tiny East Village apartment and became a full-time writer. Her latest book, “Sex and the City and Us,” is out this month.

To mark the 20th anniversary, we asked readers to tell their stories of how “Sex and the City” inspired their moves to New York. Several hundred replied, with many recounting how the show painted a seductive vision of Manhattan: endless brunches with gal pals, rewarding careers, a sea of handsome suitors and, of course, shopping sprees. Lots of these respondents were men.

In a sign of the show’s enduring cultural influence, many also criticized its crass consumerism, blaming “Sex and the City” for the demise of the West Village, in particular, and all that is good with downtown Manhattan before the days of cupcake lines and what one reader called “the influx of vapid, self-absorbed wannabes.”

Here are some of their stories, edited for space and clarity.

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Calling All Carries

I grew up watching “Sex and the City” on VHS whenever I convinced my mom to let me stay home from school. I read all of Candace Bushnell’s books and dressed up like her for the movie premiere, complete with beachy curls and enormous accessories.

I was convinced I had to move to New York, vacation in the Hamptons and take the Jitney, which I imagined to be incredibly glamorous after reading “Four Blondes.”

I moved to New York four years ago, and couch surfed for the entire summer while freelancing for women’s lifestyle publications in my quest to be just like Carrie (with a little Charlotte thrown in).

I always knew that “Sex and the City” inspired my move to New York, but I couldn’t have said exactly why. As a gay man, I grew up without a close-knit group of friends who were just like me. College gave me my first taste of that. But even then, there was still something missing: the city itself.

So, when my parents dropped me off at a studio sublet on the Upper East Side almost eight years ago, my quest for my New York City family began against the backdrop of having the freedom to date for the first time. And every adventure in dating became bearable, by the group of boys I met along the way. As my own versions of Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha, they became the fabric that wove together every job, every heartache, every anger and every hope.

One August, I had a fleeting exchange with a guy I met on Fire Island that we didn’t pursue because he was in the midst of a breakup. A few months later, I was (randomly) photographed by the Styles section of The New York Times while in line at Joe’s Pub, and he saw me in the paper and sent me a text. We’ve been together ever since.

And when I dished to my best friend about how this guy got back in touch with me, he said, “That’s so Carrie Bradshaw.”

I moved to New York in 2000 to pursue a career in fashion PR. I was a newly minted college grad from Texas and arrived with all the optimism and naïveté of a typical newcomer.

I had interned with fashion designer Cynthia Rowley the previous year and had fallen in love with the city’s energy and glamour. But I quickly learned how unglamorous fashion PR actually is. The position, however, did offer moments that now seem auspicious.

One of those was meeting Sarah Jessica Parker at a work event. She was gracious enough to pose for a picture with me and, for years, I was so proud of that photo, especially as I realized how much I would come to love the show.

Before then, I hadn’t actually seen “Sex and the City,” but I was instantly hooked. Here was a show that so perfectly captured the frustrations and hilarities of single women living, dating and working in New York. It was like my life playing out onscreen.

Sure, I couldn’t afford Manolos or a summer share in the Hamptons, but like Carrie, I loved fashion and got to be a part of that world. And I definitely dated my share of duds. We all spent too much money going out, partying and drinking cosmos.

In the end, fashion PR wasn’t for me. The egos were too big to handle and the priorities left me yearning for something more meaningful. I pivoted to fashion TV, working as a production assistant, then later moved on to cable TV, local news and finally network news. I now work as a video journalist for Voice of America.

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New York, I Love You, But ...

My son, Jack, only lived to be three weeks old. Shortly after his death, my marriage to his father ended just as abruptly. I was crushed. My life, as I knew it, was over. I was living in Los Angeles at the time, and moved back to the Bay Area to be near my friends.

As much love and support as I received from them, there was no rule book on how to deal with my loss. I was often left out of their kids’ celebrations to spare me from the reminder. Their intentions were good, but not being invited made me feel worse. Something had to change.

I was 38 years old, newly divorced and childless. But I was also completely free — free to live any way and anywhere I wanted. I chose New York City.

I had always loved New York, and as with most women back then, “Sex and the City” was a favorite escape. My friends would often tell me that I was the Charlotte of the group, and when I moved to New York in 2009, I identified with her the most.

I put everything I owned in storage, purchased a one-way ticket and created a blog called Sevinthecity about my experience. I made a point of doing as much as I could so I could share my experiences with the few who followed me. In doing so, I somehow turned what was supposed to be a one-year sojourn into seven. I fell in love twice, had my heart broken twice and lived in four different apartments.

When I returned to San Francisco in 2016, I came to realize I no longer identified with Charlotte but discovered after seven incredible years in New York that I was really Carrie Bradshaw all along. Just look in my closet.

I was an NFL cheerleader when I received a job offer for a marketing position at a financial firm in Jersey City. I jumped at the chance to use my degree and be the woman I knew I was destined to become.

My room in Chinatown was the size of my mom’s dining room rug; $750 a month earned me “once a day” bathroom privileges. One night I had to relieve myself in a Duane Reade shopping bag; this would not have happened to Samantha.

I was lonely. I called my dad every night from the fire escape outside my room, my only place of solitude. Those nights, complaining of the beautiful idiosyncrasies of New York life, were the best conversations with my late father. Until New York, we hadn’t spoken on the phone since the divorce.

He was the only person who understood this strange new city. God had me move to New York not to find my Mr. Big, but to meet my father.

I remember watching the first episode of “Sex and the City” on DVD when I was 15 years old in 2001. That first episode (and every episode after that) was absolutely life changing.

As a young, small-town closeted teen still struggling to figure out who I was, here was a show that gave me a glimpse into how my future could potentially be like: independent, confident and fabulous. Moreover, that was the moment my romance with New York began.

The city seemed so endless, with adventures around every corner. The chance of falling in love and finding “the one” overpowered everything. All of that turned out to be true once I moved here in 2008. As a 21-year-old, I was definitely a Carrie Bradshaw: wide-eyed, hopeful and a bit naive. But as I grew up, I can definitely say I am now a full-blown Samantha Jones; someone that truly knows who they are and doesn’t give a darn what people think.

In a twist to my story, after 10 full years in this incredible beautiful place, I just moved to Berlin (not Paris, thank God). And I couldn’t help but wonder: What kind of person would I be if I had never moved to New York? Definitely not someone that would move his entire life to another continent, that’s for sure.

In 2006, I was a junior in college, and “Sex and the City” episodes were on repeat in my sorority house. The scenes in Manhattan made me ripe with envy, and the clothes made me swoon. I was a wide-eyed journalism major and spent the summer between my junior and senior years interning for Condé Nast. Upon graduation, I promptly moved back to Manhattan.

But 2008 was a disaster: an unfortunate time to graduate, much less move to what felt like the most competitive city in the world. Bouncing off the subway, I returned to Condé Nast to find my paid internship as an undergrad, was now an unpaid internship as a graduate. I filled my days with freelance work, lackluster waitressing gigs and spirit-crushing temp jobs.

I had New York City at my fingertips. What I didn’t have were friends, family, a job, somewhere to go each day. I became my own best friend, an invaluable lesson. But my heart ached when I walked by girlfriends laughing at brunch together.

Days were spent blasting my résumé out, and at night I fell asleep to the show. My year in Manhattan was the best and the worst year of my life. I may not have moved there because of “Sex and the City,” but I sought refuge in the stories. These days, watching the show makes me nostalgic for the young woman I was at 21, even with all of my doubts, fears and insecurities. I feel proud of who she grew into. And I still quote Carrie whenever possible.

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‘It Ruined the City’

I did not move to New York because of the show. I was already there.

In 1998, as a former owner of the Motor City Bar on the Lower East Side, I knew squatters, DJs, musicians, artists and addicts, all struggling to pay rent, all striving for social justice and rarely catching a break the way that Charlotte, Carrie, Miranda and Samantha effortlessly seemed to.

Occasionally though, I still catch a glimmer of that old city from a rooftop on the Lower East Side. It’s up there at dawn, after the bars close that the city that never sleeps seems to pause. From that view I can still recall my unvarnished adventures and appreciate the stripped-down glamour of a sunrise, echoing a past that I call home.

“Sex and the City” created an unrealistic fantasy for some women. I dated one.

We were having a birthday dinner one year, when I surprised our table with some delicious pastries from a neighborhood bakery. My girlfriend’s sister, K, asked if the pastries were from Magnolia, the Bleecker Street place best identified by the hordes of tourists waiting for their “Sex and the City” cupcakes.

K’s face displayed pure disdain when I answered in the negative. They were from another, far better bakery down the street, I told them. My girlfriend and K tried to hide their disappointment and feigned interest while taking their obligatory bites. Our relationship crumbled within weeks.

It wasn’t until months after the breakup, while walking past that infamous bakery that I realized how the idolization of her basement apartment (on the perfect street!), the move, the shopping, the shoes and the disappointing birthday pastries were all linked to a fantastical life she saw through a TV series and rewatched exhaustively. It was a life I found too banal.

A year later, spotting my ex and her new husband, I wanted to give him the only advice I had: Watch every episode and watch it twice, and then you will have the keys to understanding part of her. I never shared that advice, choosing instead to continue walking homeward with my new partner, munching our superior pastries.

I lived in the East Village throughout the 1980s and ‘90s, then a neighborhood strewn with junkies, despair and endless inspiration. Madonna was performing at Danceteria. The Blue Man group was playing a tiny club on Avenue A, while cross-dressers danced on the bar of the Pyramid Club.

The world as we knew it was thrilling, and it was nothing like “Sex and the City.”

My first apartment had the bathtub/kitchen setup, with a plank you raised to wash the dishes or take a shower. It was not an easy life, but we felt on top of the world anyhow. We wore Doc Martens, never Manolo Blahniks. We cared a lot about fashion, but our style required low-rent creativity.

The Hamptons? My worst nightmare, still is. To leave town back then, we’d take the F train all the way out to Coney Island, to walk in the ashtray sand along the endless Atlantic.

As it turns out, “Sex and the City” marked the end rather than the beginning of my great love affair with New York. Uptown girls were soon occupying our former tenement apartments for exorbitant rents. The East Village is now as safe and pretty as the West Village.

I didn’t watch the show until after I left New York in 2000. I identified with Carrie (except for her apartment and wardrobe), a writer who was smart, funny and had sexual agency. I enjoyed the beautifully written episodes, and after leaving the city, I watched it to be among sassy, confident New York girls again.