Madison Square Park (Broad City)

Before Abbi and Ilana were Comedy Central stars, they were broke girls with buckets. In the pilot of Broad City — "What a Wonderful World," which aired January 22, 2014 — the two need cash for Lil Wayne concert tickets, so they do what any resourceful New Yorkers would do: they set up in Madison Square Park and drum on buckets for spare change. The bit came straight from Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson's 2009–2011 web series, and the park came straight from real life. If you've ever been young and broke in New York, you've had your own Madison Square Park bucket-drumming era. Maybe without the buckets.

The Scene

The pilot has to introduce Abbi and Ilana fast, and the park scene does it in one shot: two best friends, zero dollars, infinite confidence, banging out rhythms on overturned buckets while crowds stream past. It's the show's thesis in miniature — the city as playground, poverty as a temporary inconvenience, friendship as the whole economy.

Broad City ran for five seasons (2014–2019) and filmed all over New York, but the Madison Square Park beat matters because it's one of the show's origin moments — a gag Glazer and Jacobson carried over from the scrappy web series that got them discovered. The park's benches, lawns, and people-watching chaos are the natural habitat of the show's comedy: Abbi the anxious striver, Ilana the chaos agent, both of them completely at home among the dog runs and office workers.

The Backstory

Madison Square Park sits between 23rd and 26th Streets, from Fifth Avenue to Madison Avenue, in the Flatiron District — about six acres of some of the most storied green space in Manhattan. It's where Shake Shack began: in 2001, Danny Meyer's Union Square Hospitality Group set up a hot dog cart in the park as part of an art installation, and the lines were so long that the first permanent Shack opened there in 2004. The park's revival was driven by the Madison Square Park Conservancy, founded in 2004, which also runs the acclaimed Mad. Sq. Art program — large-scale public art installations that rotate through the grounds.

The Flatiron Building (1902) looms just across 23rd Street, and the park has been a New York crossroads since the 19th century — close to the original Madison Square Garden, surrounded by the city's first commercial skyscraper district. For Broad City's purposes, though, its real credential is simpler: it's the kind of park where two girls with buckets look like they belong.

What to Look For

Head for the southern end of the park near 23rd Street — that's the Broad City zone, closest to where the bucket-drumming would have gone down. Then do the full lap: the original Shake Shack (southeast corner, follow the line), the sweeping views of the Flatiron Building, the dog run (canine chaos is a supporting character in every park scene), and whatever massive art installation the Conservancy has up — there's almost always something. Grab a bench, people-watch, and appreciate that Abbi and Ilana were doing exactly this, just with more percussion.

Getting There

Madison Square Park, between East 23rd and East 26th Streets, Fifth Avenue to Madison Avenue, Manhattan. Free and open daily.

Subway: take the R or W to 23rd Street (Broadway) or the 6 to 23rd Street (Park Avenue South) — the park is right there.

Trivia

• The bucket-drumming gag originated in Glazer and Jacobson's Broad City web series (2009–2011), which Amy Poehler discovered and helped bring to Comedy Central.
• Broad City ran five seasons and 50 episodes, ending in 2019 — and the series finale deliberately callbacks the pilot, bucket drums and all.
• The first Shake Shack started as a hot dog cart supporting the park's art program; it's now a global chain, but the Madison Square Park location is the original.
• The park's Mad. Sq. Art program has hosted major installations by artists like Maya Lin and Teresita Fernández.

The Hunt Clue

Where Abbi and Ilana drummed for their pay,

On buckets and bravado, come what may —

The Flatiron watches the park at play,

And Shake Shack's line winds far away.

Twenty-third Street, come join the fray —

Dear hunter, drum your blues away.

Photo by Rsmn via Wikimedia Commons Public Domain / CC0 1.0