Where It All Goes Down
New York City: Manhattan, the Upper West Side
Seize the Day isn't just a short novel with a relatively uneventful plot: it's also a novel that covers a pretty small geographical territory too. The Hotel Gloriana sits right on Broadway, and from the moment Wilhelm steps out of his room in the morning to the moment he breaks down in a nearby funeral parlor, he never strays farther than a few minutes' walk from his temporary home.
All of the events that occur in present-tense of the novel happen right on Broadway: in the rooms, lobby, dining hall, and baths of the Hotel Gloriana; in the "crowded theater of the brokerage office" (5.3); in the cafeteria that Wilhelm can see from the Hotel Gloriana's dining room windows; in the cigar store across the way; and in the funeral parlor that sits just a short walk down the road from the Hotel Gloriana's doors.
No bones about it, this novel's setting is New York, New York! Unfamiliar? Just check this out.