places


(top) East 85th Street; (right) 524 East 85th Street

Fitzhugh's residence while she was writing
Harriet the Spy, set in the same neighborhood

A map of Harriet's Upper East Side neighborhood

 A Walking Tour of Harriet's Neighborhood
excerpted from I Am Eloise. I Live at the Plaza
by Judy Zuckerman (School Library Journal, June 1996)

Now, walk east one block to East End Ave. The off-white, green-shuttered colonial clapboard cottage you see up ahead is Gracie Mansion (corner of East End Avenue and 88th), which has served as the mayor's residence since 1942. Before you cross to take a closer look, walk around the corner to East 87th Street where you'll find the home of Harriet M. Welsch, the snooping, aspiring writer in Louise Fitzhugh's Harriet the Spy (HarperCollins, 1964). Harriet lives in a three-floor private home, probably one of the brick or brownstone buildings on the south side of the street near the corner. Harriet's room is on the top floor.

Head back to Gracie Mansion and walk up the driveway, bearing right into Carl Schurz Park. Harriet and her classmates play here, and this park is the setting for one of the most memorable scenes in the book. In chapter 10, Harriet and her friends are playing tag after school-on the grassy hills to your right-when Harriet realizes that her spy notebook with all her private comments on her friends and neighbors is missing. To her horror, she finds that her classmates have found it, and Janie Gibbs is reading it aloud.

Harriet descended upon them with a scream that was supposed to frighten Janie so much she would drop the book. But Janie didn't frighten easily. She just stopped reading and looked up calmly. The others looked up too. She looked at all their eyes and suddenly Harriet M. Welsch was afraid....

Janie passed the notebook to Sport and Rachel, never taking her eyes off Harriet as she did so. "Sport, you're on page thirty-four; Rachel, you're on fifteen," she said quietly.

Walk through the park to the East River. From the walkway over the FDR Drive you have a wonderful view you'll feel miles away from the frenzy of midtown. Leave the park via any path heading back to East End Ave. This quiet, residential avenue is the eastern edge of Yorkville, a neighborhood that used to be home to German, Czech, and Hungarian immigrants. Now luxury apartments and townhouses far outnumber walk-up apartments and tenements. There are also two very highly regarded private schools on this street. The Chapin School, the Georgian-style building at 100 East End Ave. at 84th Street, was probably the model for Harriet's school, The Gregory School. The layout of Chapin fits the description of the Gregory, the only difference being that Chapin educates girls only. Louise Fitzhugh lived around the corner when she wrote Harriet the Spy in the small red brick apartment building at 524 East 85th Street.


  • Harriet's Spy Route
    East 88th Street: The Robinsons' duplex
    East End Avenue, at 87th Street: Amanda K. Plumber's house
    York Avenue, at 86th Street: Dei Santi Grocery Store
    East 82nd Street: Harrison Withers' two-room apartment on the top floor of a rooming house

  • Harriet's friends and classmates
    East 88th Street: Pinky Whitehead's house
    East 85th Street: Rachel Hennessey's ground floor apartment (possibly Fitzhugh's residence)
    East 84th, off East End Avenue: Janie Gibbs' garden duplex in a renovated brownstone
    East 82nd, between York Avenue and East End: Sport's fourth floor apartment

  • Off the beaten path
    East 77th and Fifth: Harriet's old house
    East 96th and Fifth: Dr. Wagner's Office
    Far Rockaway: Ole Golly's mother's house
    Water Mill, Long Island : Harriet's summer home

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