By Gabriela Resto-Montero
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
UPPER EAST SIDE — Blair Waldorf and Serena Van Der Woodsen may be fictional characters on the show "Gossip Girl," but the locations on where they live and play are real, and fans are flocking to the Upper East SIde to check them out.
OnLocation Tours began offering a "Gossip Girl" tour last summer taking curious tourists into the lives of elite Upper East Siders.
"'Gossip Girl' is such a materialized world and people see this glamorous world," said Pauline Gacanja, spokesperson for the company. "They want to see if these kids really live those lives, and they do."
The bus tours of the Upper East Side haunts of Waldorf, Van Der Woodsen and their boytoys Chuck Bass, Dan Humphrey and Nate Archibald, cost $40 for three and a half hours.
Stops include the Palace Hotel on Madison Avenue, where the Bass and Van Der Woodsen families live, and the Synod of Bishops Russian Church and Museum of the City of New York, which stand-in for the uber-preppy Constance Dillard School for Girls and St. Jude School for Boys.
Tourists who want to travel in the style their favorite characters have grown accustomed to can opt for a private, limousine "Gossip Girl" tour for $185 that includes lunch at a featured restaurant on the show.
The biggest group of "Gossip Girl" fans on the tour come from Germany, Australia and the United Kingdom, Gacanja said.
Although the tours run only during the weekend, hard-core fans stop by the Fifth Avenue building where the fictional Blair Waldorf lives every day, said Chris Bermudez, 32, a doorman at the pre-war residence.
"They come inside and take pictures," said Bermudez.
Residents of the building have been just as amused with the fans as the visitors appear to be with the neighborhood, and there haven't been any complaints, Bermudez said.
Nevertheless, owners of the Fifth Avenue residence have said they will not allow any more shoots, he said.
Over the years, the photogenic building with enviable views of Central Park has been used as the setting for episodes of "CSI: New York" and the 2008 Ricky Gervais film "Ghost Town," Bermudez said.
Manhattan locations bring crews to the city, with up to 200 feature films and 160 television shows, including "Gossip Girl", shot on site every year, said Marybeth Ihle, spokeswoman for the Mayor's Office of Film, Theatre and Broadcasting.
Ultimately, Gacanja hopes to lure the toughest audience of all to the tour — real live Upper East Side Prep School students.
"It's their life that people are coming here to see," she said.
