Screens: Comedy Central

Summer Is When You Remember That New York City Was Built On A Hell Swamp

It may be brisk in New York now, but Broad City's season premiere is riddled with reasons you should NEVER go there in the summer, and we're counting them down.

Tara Ariano

January 15th, 2015

New York is the greatest city in the world, and even now that I live in what is generally agreed to be some version of paradise (just ask my bitter second cousins whining about it, on Facebook, from Alberta, like I told them to live there), I miss it. New York in spring is a fashion show as everyone hauls out her cutest sundresses and flats and reminds her neighbours that she had a figure under that parka all along. New York in fall is a movie set, the dappled light illuminating the crunchy leaves and sassy scarves. Even in winter, New York isn't that bad, usually, as long as you never step in a slushy puddle, which could be as shallow as the sole of your boot or deep enough to swallow your whole leg.

But New York in summer is, in a word, disgusting. The very same skyscrapers that trap heat in winter and keep the streets from ever staying terribly cold for long (though I grant that it's relative -- I did, after all, grow up on Canada's frozen prairies) trap it even worse in summer. The second you open your door to your hallway, the mugginess punches you in the face and instantly starts you sweating through even the thinnest clothes. Forget about your hair or skin looking good until the temperature gets back under 90 degrees. And if you have the misfortune of working in an office, good luck finding any kind of outfit strategy that won't completely wilt in the weather from your home to the subway platform, only to freeze in your workplace's Arctic temperatures. And if you don't have air conditioning in your bedroom, I don't care how good your box fan is: expect not to sleep through the night until October.

Not to be that guy, but I really feel like if you've never experienced a New York summer without A/C, you truly can't appreciate how soul-drainingly awful it is. That said, this episode of Broad City -- which revolves around Abbi's quest to sort out her A/C situation so that she can actually have consensual sex with male-Stacy -- is so impressively evocative in its portrayal of the season that it comes pretty close. In fact, it's close enough. Don't ever go to New York between June and September; just remember this countdown of revolting New York summer experiences and think about...like, late April.