Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York blog covers the phenomenon of Danny Meyer’s Shake Shack in Madison Square Park. Part of the whole renown and hoopla around Shake Shack seems to focus on the obligatorily long wait-in-line for the food — the Shake Shack even encourages those standing in line to do Shack-cercizes and has its own web cam! VNY has his own theories about what the whole attraction to waiting-in-line is for some New Yorkers.
(Personally, after reading some Chowhound reviews of primarily Shake Shack hamburgers, I wonder about the whole meat industry-tortured animals-factory farming-hormones in our food-potentially alzheimers- causing prions factors and what the attraction to that is.)
Nevertheless, if Shake Shack, and, more importantly, some necessary Parks Department upkeep, helped make Madison Square Park more of a destination, it does not mean that our parks that manage just fine as they are (see: Washington Square Park, Union Square Park) need to be tampered with in the same way.