Since the hugely popular 1998-2004 series spilled onto television screens worldwide, New York has become the city of dreams for millions of women who identify with journalist Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker), the chronicler of city life; art dealer Charlotte (Kristin Davis), who converted for love to Judaism; Miranda the lawyer and single mother (Cynthia Nixon); and Samantha the man-eater (Kim Catrall).

And the city will be back in the limelight starting on Monday, when the film version, starring the same quartet of smart, emancipated, fashion-and-love-fixated New York women premieres in London.

As in the TV series, the title comes from the name of Carrie's weekly column for the fictional New York Star, on the pleasures and conundrums of single life in the Big Apple.

For this she, and the series, draws heavily on Carrie's and her friends' own love lives, recounted in cocktail-spiked discussions in trendy Manhattan bars and restaurants and anguished late-night phone calls.

The series made the four actresses global stars; it also made New York a cult-like figure especially among women.

Numerous New York travel agencies, like On Location Tours, offer tours to visit the sites featured in SATC. The Sex and the City package offers a tour to some 40 places, like the Pastis restaurant on 9th Ave. where Carrie had a romantic rendezvous, and Tiffany's on 5th Ave, where Charlotte and beau Harry Goldenblatt got her engagement ring.

It costs just US$50 (S$68) for a tour by bus; by limousine, the price tops US$100.

On the weekends a dozen such tours are scheduled, starting at all times from 10am to 4pm.

And for the New York launch of the film on May 30, the tours go up to US$130, but the price includes a ticket to the film and a party afterwards - Cosmos and other cocktails not included.

In a sign of how popular Sex and the City is, most of the tickets have already been snapped up.

Hotels aren't missing out, either. Le Muse Hotel offers a SATC weekend starting at US$475 a night.

For US$2,000 a night (for two!) the Mandarin Oriental offers a suite with a view of the Hudson River and a voucher for US$200 to be used at Henri Bendel, one of fashionista Carrie's favourite boutiques.

Indeed, New York boutiques are raking it in from SATC's success as well.

Thanks to the series' stylist Patricia Field, Jimmy Choo, Manolo Blahnik and Christian Louboutin shoes have become almost household names, and more than a few New Yorkers have been persuaded to part with US$600 for a pair of 10-centimetre stilleto heels of the type worn by Carrie and her pals.

Love, labels and Manolos was the headline this week of an article in New York's Metro weekly, like every other publication playing up Sex and the City's powerful influence ahead of the movie's release.

Such articles promise that the show's revival on the big screen will score the dream of New York into the hearts of hundreds of a new generation of women. -- AFP