"You've Got Mail!"

I'm watching "You've Got Mail" on AMC. It's a holiday movie. I love "You've Got Mail." Yes, I love Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks and "Sleepless in Seattle." And I love book stores of all kinds. Big, little, with or without coffee shops... but most of all I love my old 'hood.
(H&H Bagels-- look, it's H&H!)
The entire movie was shot on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. I lived at 96th and Columbus for 12 years. The neighborhood changed a lot-- when I moved in, 96th Street was like the final frontier. Go north-- sketchy 'til you got to Columbia. Go South-- classic Upper West Side: restaurants, delis, small stores and more and more boutiques the farther south you went. By the time I moved to the 'burbs, gentrification north of 96th street had brought new businesses to Columbus and Amsterdam... It was safer, but it sort of lost some of its character.
I loved Shakespeare & Co. It was the famous not-so-little book store in my 'hood. I lived on the Upper West Side when Barnes & Noble opened its first store in Manhattan.
It was Fox's in the movie. Everyone thought that B&N would kill Shakespeare & Co.-- as Fox's was going to kill the Shop Around the Corner in the movie. Actually it was Manhattan's rising real estate prices that killed it-- to which maybe B&N contributed indirectly.
(Zabar's-- they just showed Zabar's. I loved Zabar's, too.)
I love this movie-- for the memories, the romance, AND the books!