No wonder actress Carol Kane considers herself an “Upper West Side gal.” She grew up on West 68th Street in the Dorchester Towers, bought her first studio apartment a block away for around $25,000 in the ’70s and still lives in the neighborhood. Although she’s spent much of her time elsewhere filming movies (“The Princess Bride”) and TV series (she was Simka Dahblitz on “Taxi”), many of Kane’s memorable roles happened right here. She played Woody Allen’s ex-wife in “Annie Hall” and Madame Morrible in Broadway’s “Wicked.” Her latest NYC-centric turn is Friday’s “Sleepwalk With Me,” a film adaptation of comedian Mike Birbiglia’s acclaimed stage show. This is her New York.
1. Studio 54, formerly 254 W. 54th St., between Broadway and Eighth Avenue
“I went [in its heyday]. I was on the naive side back then. I was not a participant in the drugs or a lot of the things that made the place famous. I enjoyed standing up high on the balcony and watching people dance. I had a friend named Ara Gallant who worked as Richard Avedon’s hairstylist. I used to go with him and Anjelica Huston. They had rooms with nearly naked waiters, and there was definitely a cloud of drug dust over the VIP areas.”
2. The Plaza Hotel, 768 Fifth Ave., at 59th Street
“I started as an extra on [1971’s] ‘Plaza Suite.’ Walter Matthau came up and said ‘hi’ once, but I didn’t really try and talk to the actors. I always wanted to be a good actress and a serious actress. I wasn’t in the profession to quote-unquote meet the stars. Of course, I had tremendous admiration for them, but I didn’t think it was appropriate. I just wanted to do my job. I was on the outside steps of the Plaza. I was just walking up and down the steps and going in the door over and over.”
3. M104 bus, Broadway, Upper West Side
“I first met Danny DeVito [who I later worked with on ‘Taxi’] on the bus. This was the late 1960s, and I was a teenager. He just started talking to me. Back then, it wasn’t so scary when a stranger spoke to you on the bus. Buses and subways are this remarkable social club. You talk to people you wouldn’t normally talk to. I’m still good friends with Danny and [his wife] Rhea Perlman.”
4. The Improv, formerly 358 W.44th St., at Ninth Avenue
“I saw Andy Kaufman perform. This was at the time he was doing Mighty Mouse and that other stuff. He had an extraordinary commitment to his work. On penalty of death, he’d never wink at his audience to let them in on the joke. That was one of the great things about seeing him. He was always raw and dangerous. I didn’t really speak to him much at the show. Just a quick hello. I wasn’t in his circle of friends, just his colleague from ‘Taxi.’ ”
5. 2 W. 67th St., at Central Park West
“While filming ‘Annie Hall,’ I never really hung out with Woody Allen. I was friends with [co-star] Diane Keaton by then, and Woody once came to a Christmas party I had. We didn’t really have a significant amount of socializing. I was so shy and he was so shy. We had a hard time relaxing around each other.”
6. East 10th Street, Flatbush, Brooklyn
“I lived a few blocks from John Cazale, and we got to go to the set of ‘Dog Day Afternoon’ together. On the set, we had this, I think, real vault. Poor Al [Pacino] had to put up with the fact that every time we tellers got locked in the vault, we started hysterically laughing just from nerves. There was no air, and it was small. Poor Al would come in there with some serious work to do and we’d be in that kind of hysteria where you had no control over it. Finally, Penny Allen, who played the head teller, pulled us all together.”
7. Steiner Studios, 15 Washington Ave., at the Brooklyn Navy Yard
“I just shot an episode of ‘Girls’ there two weeks ago. I played the mother who goes to an AA meeting with Adam [Driver] and decides after his share that he’s got to get together with my beautiful daughter. When I drove on the lot, I thought, here’s this huge production and all these people have jobs and are working because of the creativity of this young woman, Lena Dunham. It’s amazing.”