Where Burgers, ‘Bling’ and Old Elms Align
The charms of Madison Square Park
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In the heart of Manhattan’s Flatiron District, Madison Square Park’s leafy canopy is its calling card. The 6-plus-acre space attracts 80,000 people on a busy spring or summer day. PHOTO: STEVE REMICH FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
By RALPH GARDNER JR.
June 1, 2016 8:40 p.m. ET
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As New York City keeps developing, especially skyward, the aspects of it that somehow manage to cling to their antiquity seem more precious and impressive than ever.
For example, Madison Square Park. Despite the residential towers rising along its periphery and Shake Shack in its southeast corner, the park somehow retains the charm that Edward Steichen captured in his famous 1904 photograph of the Flatiron Building, rising like an apparition through the branches of the trees.
Indeed, Madison Square Park still has two English Elms that are more than 300 years old—three if you include the remnant near Shake Shack, affectionately known as “stumpy.”
The story that Stephanie Lucas, horticulture director of the Madison Park Conservancy, has heard is that her predecessor, Bill Steyer, so loved the tree he couldn’t bear to have it removed completely.
There’s the possibility, Ms. Lucas said, that the trees came from grafts from Washington Square Park’s “Hangman’s Elm,” the oldest known tree in Manhattan.
ENLARGEThe park’s leafy canopy is its calling card. The 6-plus-acre space attracts 80,000 people on a busy spring or summer day. But you’d never know it.
Unlike Bryant Park and Union Square Park, which seem to welcome the city’s tumult with open arms, Madison Square Park somehow neutralizes it, rendering it harmless.
“Before our job was to bring people into the park because it was an empty space,” said Keats Myer, the Conservancy’s executive director. “Now it is to figure out how to protect the park.”
Ms. Myer was referring to a time before the park’s restoration, completed in 2001, when many of the storefronts surrounding the park were empty and NoMad—the mashup stands for NOrth of MADison Square Park—wasn’t yet a hot neighborhood.
These days, those storefronts are filled with retailers, including the Italian marketplace Eataly, the design house Marimekko and the Lego Store filled with Legos.
Shake Shack also has more than a little to do with the park’s renaissance. The retro burger chain started as a single hot dog cart in the park in 2001. “That went very well,” Ms. Myer said with some understatement.
While the burger stands attracts epic lines—is any burger worth waiting 45-minutes for, no matter how tender and juicy?—it also contributes handsomely to the Conservancy’s coffers.
“They pay us a percentage of the receipts and we use that money to make this place the way it looks,” said David Berliner, the Conservancy’s chairman. “It all goes back into the park.”
Madison Square Park also has a vibrant free contemporary art program called Mad. Sq. Art. At the moment, the lawn features is a huge sculpture by Martin Puryear. At 40 feet high, “Big Bling” is the largest temporary piece the artist has created.
At the sculpture’s summit is a gold-leaf shackle, the “bling,” which is supported by a multitiered structure made of plywood and chain-link fence. And on the afternoon I visited, only moments after its installation, the work was already drawing the attention of the abundant squirrel population.
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Martin Puryear’s 40-foot sculpture, “Big Bling,” will be on view until January 2017. PHOTO: STEVE REMICH FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Brooke Kamin Rapaport, Mad. Sq. Art’s director and Martin Friedman Senior Curator, drew my attention to the way the sculpture mimicked the stories on the buildings nearby.
And, of course, also the gold leaf on the Met Life Tower and the New York Life building that overlook the park.
Even though, Ms. Rapaport added “Martin is well known for not ascribing narrative to his work.”
That was a relief. Since I’d initially thought the sculpture was titled “Bug Bling” and was enjoying its similarities to a giant, mantis-like insect. Or maybe a mastadon.
As attention getting as the artwork is, it never threatens the park’s serenity—its reflecting pool, paths, towering trees, seasonal plantings and its wildlife.
Falcons migrate through and an American Woodcock makes an annual pilgrimage. And then there are those squirrels.
Pointing to a majestic hole in one of the ancient English elms, Ms. Lucas said: “I’d say there’s about 25 squirrels in that tree.”
— ralph.gardner@wsj.com