Plates

A young Billy Crystal with curly hair, laughing, in a black-and-white portrait — Plate I. Billy Crystal, who plays Harry, in 1977. ABC Television · Public domain

Meg Ryan with short fair hair, sitting with her knees up in a dark coat, in black and white — Plate II. Meg Ryan, who plays Sally, in 1983. CBS · Public domain

The last page read first

Billy Crystal Meg Ryan written by Nora Ephron directed by Rob Reiner

When Harry Met Sally...

Each of the three dots is a city: Chicago, New York, Los Angeles.

Read it Harry’s way: last page first

A Gothic stone library front with twin towers behind autumn trees on a lawn — Harper Memorial Library from the quad, November 2023. Warren LeMay · CC BY-SA 2.0

Chicago · Hyde Park

They met on a quad,
then drove the wrong way.

Sally pulls up in front of Harper Memorial Library to pick Harry up for the drive to New York. The opening scene was filmed on Harper Quad during orientation week in 1988.

On the University of Chicago campus: see the front from Harper Quad. It is a working university library.

Where we read it

Which way is New York from here?

Pick a direction.

A black tapering skyscraper with cross-braces seen from the street — 875 North Michigan Avenue, the former John Hancock Center, May 2023. Cameron Murray · CC BY-SA 4.0

Lake Shore Drive, northbound · 12 km from the quad

The tower you should not pass

Leaving campus, the car heads north up Lake Shore Drive towards downtown: the wrong way for New York, because the university is south of downtown. The University of Chicago Magazine’s ruling: pass the Hancock on your way to New York and you are going the wrong way.

360 Chicago, the observation deck on the 94th floor, opens daily 9am–11pm; last entry 10pm.

Where we read it

360 Chicago

875 North Michigan Avenue, Chicago · Daily 9am–11pm · last entry 10pm

The observation deck on the 94th floor of the former John Hancock Tower: look south to see which way the drive should have gone.

Plan a visit

205 East Houston Street · Lower East Side

Hope you have
what she had.

Orders served 0

Nobody’s looking. Yet.

A corner deli with a long red sign and a queue along the pavement — Katz’s, Houston and Ludlow, June 2024. Frank Schulenburg · CC BY-SA 4.0

Monday–Thursday 8am–11pm; open round the clock from 8am Friday to 11pm Sunday. F train to Second Avenue.

Where we read it

Katz’s Delicatessen

Lunch at Katz’s

205 East Houston Street · Mon–Thu 8am–11pm · Fri 8am to Sun 11pm non-stop

The deli where the scene was filmed, with the table still marked by its sign. Groups of more than ten can ask to reserve.

Hours and directions

On Location Tours

Private When Harry Met Sally Sites Tour

Manhattan · 2 hours · $160 per person, minimum 3

A private two-hour tour by vehicle: Café Luxembourg, where Shakespeare & Co. stood, the Met, Harry’s apartment, Jess and Marie’s brownstone, Washington Square Park and Katz’s.

See the tour

Orange and yellow trees reflected in still water, twin apartment towers beyond — The Lake, Central Park, November 2024. Superbass · CC BY-SA 4.0

Central Park and the Met

Autumn
in New York.

“Autumn in New York” is on Harry Connick, Jr.’s soundtrack. Three places in it are under the leaves: kick each pile clear.

Where we read it

The soundtrack album, Columbia 1989, includes “Autumn in New York”.
MusicBrainz: When Harry Met Sally…, Music From the Motion Picture (Columbia, 1989)

A long low boathouse with a green roof at the water’s edge, trees behind — The Central Park Boathouse on the Lake, July 2019. Ajay Suresh · CC BY 2.0

The Boathouse

The Lake, East Side at 74th Street, Central Park

Sally lunches with Marie and Alice at the Boathouse, autumn trees behind them.

The first boathouse on this shore, by Calvert Vaux, went up in the 1870s; by the 1950s it had been replaced by the building there now.

Café daily 8am–5pm; restaurant Monday–Saturday 11am–9pm, Sunday 11am–8pm. Rowboats in season.

Where we read it

A brick-paved terrace round a fountain, ringed by autumn trees and people walking — Bethesda Terrace and Fountain, November 2025. Julian Lupyan · CC0

Bethesda Terrace

Mid-Park at 72nd Street, Central Park

Harry and Jess talk over Harry’s night with Sally while power-walking through Central Park, past Bethesda Terrace.

Calvert Vaux and Jacob Wrey Mould designed the two-level terrace; the arcade ceiling holds nearly 16,000 Minton tiles.

Open to walk and sit. The fountain is off for restoration, expected to take about a year.

Where we read it

A long pool in a glass-walled gallery, trees outside the slanted windows — Gallery 131 at the Met: the reflecting pool and the slanted wall of windows, April 2024. Summermother · CC BY-SA 4.0

The Temple of Dendur

Gallery 131, The Met Fifth Avenue, 1000 Fifth Avenue

Harry and Sally’s autumn together takes in the Temple of Dendur at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The temple was completed by 10 CE in Nubia, given to the United States by Egypt in 1965 and awarded to the Met in 1967. It stands in Gallery 131.

Inside The Met Fifth Avenue; enter up the steps at East 82nd Street. Check the museum’s hours and tickets before you go.

Where we read it

0 of 3 clear.

Central Park Conservancy

Lunch at the Boathouse

Central Park, East Side at 74th · Café daily 8am–5pm · restaurant Mon–Sat 11am–9pm, Sun 11am–8pm

Sally’s lunch spot on the Lake. The café is open daily; the restaurant takes reservations; rowboats go out in season.

Plan a visit

Last page first

Harry reads
the ending first.

He looks at a book’s last page first, in case he dies before he finishes it. These seven places can’t be visited, so read them his way: pull a book, see how it ends, then turn back to page one.

Where we read it

Harry’s habit of reading a book’s last page first, in case he dies before he can finish it.
The University of Chicago Magazine: Old friends (Ingrid Gonçalves and Sean Carr, Jan–Feb 2015)

The last page

Shakespeare & Co.

Broadway at West 81st Street, Upper West Side

The end.

The shop opened in 1983 and closed in 1996, up against a nearby Barnes & Noble.

Nothing of the shop remains to visit.

Opened 1 of 7, last page first.

200 West 70th Street · since 1983

Tonight

Harry and Sally’s disastrous double date with Jess and Marie is at Café Luxembourg, which opened in 1983.

Served

Breakfast: Mon–Fri 8.30–11am
Lunch: Mon–Fri 11am–3.30pm
Brunch: Sat–Sun 10am–3.30pm
Dinner: Tue–Sat 5–10.30pm · Sun–Mon 5–10pm

House rule: no tablets, no laptops, no phone calls.

Where we read it

New Year’s Eve

One party,
two coasts.

A tall arched entrance with columns and a large leaded window above glass doors — The Park Plaza Hotel entrance, Los Angeles, 2008. Molly Berke · CC BY 3.0

11:59pmSoHo, New York

8:59pmWestlake, Los Angeles

A minute to go, on both coasts.

A red-brick building with tall round-arched windows against blue sky — The Puck Building, Lafayette Street, June 2023. Epicgenius · CC BY-SA 4.0

The door

Harry’s arrival at the New Year’s Eve party is the entrance of the Park Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles; the number 607 shows just before he goes in. Curlett and Beelman designed the former Elks Lodge in the 1920s; it is one of the most filmed buildings in Los Angeles.

An events venue: see the entrance from Park View Street.

Where we read it

The room

The Puck Building is the room for Jess and Marie’s wedding and for the New Year’s Eve party at the end. Built from 1885 to 1899 for Puck magazine, it is a designated New York City landmark. It now houses NYU’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School, penthouses and an REI store.

Offices, homes and a shop: see the front from Lafayette Street.

Where we read it

A white marble triumphal arch at the edge of a busy square, a tower visible through it — The Washington Square Arch, April 2026. Christian David · CC BY-SA 4.0

Washington Square · 0.8 km from the Puck Building as the crow flies

Where she dropped him off

Sally drops Harry off in Washington Square Park, the Twin Towers framed by the arch. The park comes back at the end, on Harry’s New Year’s Eve run. Stanford White designed the marble arch, dedicated in 1895. It replaced a plaster and wooden arch put up in 1889 for the centennial of George Washington’s inauguration.

A city park; the arch stands at its north edge.

Where we read it

Washington Square Hotel

103 Waverly Place, Greenwich Village

A hotel since 1902, steps from Washington Square Park, where Sally drops Harry off. Not a filming location.

Check rooms

How they met

The couples,
in order of appearance.

The film cuts away to older couples on a couch telling how they met. Harry and Sally get the last one. Here are the people who made it, in pairs.

The two on the couch in the last interview.

Rob Reiner, bearded, in a checked shirt and pale trousers, at night — Rob Reiner outside Spago in Los Angeles, 1988. Alan Light · CC BY 2.0

Nora Ephron laughing, in a pale scarf, with dark hair and a fringe — Nora Ephron at the Tribeca Film Festival, April 2010. David Shankbone · CC BY 3.0

He directed; she wrote the screenplay.

Carrie Fisher with long hair in a pink dotted blouse, looking up from a table — Carrie Fisher at a premiere party, 1978. Alan Light · CC BY 2.0

Bruno Kirby plays Jess, her other half.

Rob Reiner died in December 2025. Katz’s, which often sent the Reiners its food in California, remembered him as a big part of the deli’s story.

Where we read it

Rob Reiner directed and Nora Ephron wrote the film; Billy Crystal plays Harry Burns, Meg Ryan Sally Albright, Carrie Fisher Marie and Bruno Kirby Jess. Documentary-style interviews with fictitious older couples run through the film, and Harry and Sally appear in the final one.
AFI Catalog: When Harry Met Sally... (1989)
Rob Reiner died in December 2025; Katz’s owner Jake Dell said the Reiners frequently ordered from the deli and had the food sent to California, and that he was a big part of the story of Katz’s.
Fox News: the deli made famous by Rob Reiner’s most iconic movie scene (Deirdre Bardolf, 18 December 2025)
In January 2025 Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan re-created the Katz’s scene for a Super Bowl advert, as listed on the deli’s press page.
Katz’s Delicatessen: press

The last page

And they
all went there.

Where it is now

10 places you can visit in 3 cities. The brownstone at 32 West 89th Street is a private home and 57 East 11th Street is an office building; they and the five places that are gone sit on the shelf, not on the map.

Pins mark public places; private homes are named but not pinned.

General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: building · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. On the University of Chicago campus: see the front from Harper Quad. It is a working university library.
General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: building · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. 360 Chicago, the observation deck on the 94th floor, opens daily 9am–11pm; last entry 10pm.

Harper Memorial Library from the quad, November 2023. Warren LeMay · CC BY-SA 2.0
1116 East 59th Street, Hyde Park, Chicago
Harper Memorial Library
Sally pulls up in front of Harper Memorial Library to pick Harry up for the drive to New York.
On the University of Chicago campus: see the front from Harper Quad. It is a working university library.
Where we read it
875 North Michigan Avenue, the former John Hancock Center, from Michigan Avenue, May 2023. Cameron Murray · CC BY-SA 4.0
875 North Michigan Avenue, Streeterville, Chicago
875 North Michigan Avenue
Leaving campus, the car heads north up Lake Shore Drive towards downtown: the wrong way for New York, because the university is south of downtown.
360 Chicago, the observation deck on the 94th floor, opens daily 9am–11pm; last entry 10pm.
Where we read it

Stay

A room by the arch.

A hotel steps from the park where Sally drops Harry off. It is not a filming location.

Washington Square Hotel

103 Waverly Place, Greenwich Village

A hotel since 1902, steps from Washington Square Park, where Sally drops Harry off. Not a filming location.

Check rooms

Go there