‘Abbott Elementary’ takes a field trip to what might be Philly’s best-kept secret

In last year’s season finale of Abbott Elementary, students and teachers encountered the statue of Ben Franklin and the Giant Heart at the Franklin Institute. The year before, they lifted off in the Philadelphia Zoo balloon.

In the episode of the Philly-centric mockumentary sitcom released Wednesday, Abbott’s denizens take a field trip to the Smith Memorial Playground and Playhouse, a Philadelphia institution that’s no less beloved — if more of the if-you-know-you-know variety.

“There are people that know Smith deeply, with the generational connection going back many years,” says Frances Hoover, executive director of Smith, “and then there is a fair amount of people who grew up here and live here that have no idea we’re here.”

That’s likely to change now with Smith’s appearance on a popular national TV show. Public awareness after Abbott’s Franklin Institute episode had long legs — “people still bring it up,” said the science center’s president and CEO, Larry Dubinski. Smith is a much smaller organization than the Franklin, which could mean a bigger impact.

“I imagine that Smith Playground will now be on people’s list coming to Philadelphia or people in Philadelphia that have not been there,” said Dubinski.

The visibility boost comes at a critical time for the group, established 125 years ago through a bequest from wealthy Philadelphians Richard and Sarah Smith in memory of their son, Stanfield. For many of those years, Smith Memorial was largely supported by a trust left by the Smiths, and that trust is in the process of being dissolved. The playground and playhouse — which is a nonprofit offering free admission — will now be looking more toward donors for support.

“It gives us an opportunity to launch a discussion of the impact we’ve had and generally the importance of play,” says Hoover of the group’s rare moment in the national spotlight.

The chance came out of the blue when a scout from the show showed up at Smith, “and they were looking at the slide and asking questions,” she said.

The Giant Wooden Slide is the centerpiece of the Smith experience for many — a charmingly low-tech structure on whose smooth wooden boards millions of bottoms have glided at (relatively) high velocity, triggering squeals and generous doses of adrenaline.

Smith’s slide is also the site of a pivotal moment for Janine and Gregory, the Abbott characters played by Quinta Brunson (the show’s creator) and Tyler James Williams. But the episode wasn’t actually filmed at the historic playhouse in East Fairmount Park. Economic factors dictated shooting its segments in Los Angeles’ Griffith Park and on a backlot at Warner Bros. in Burbank, Calif. So a replica of the slide was designed and built.

The replica is exacting in some ways, but it isn’t an entirely faithful reproduction of the one at Smith Playground.

“Quinta referred to the set as the emotional crux of the entire season, so there was a lot of pressure to get this right,” said production designer Michael Whetstone, who worked on the slide design with art director Suzan Wexler.

For the slide in the show, the crew “brought the wood [flooring] all the way out so [Brunson and Williams] could slide out” and the team could film the emotional scene outdoors, Whetstone said.

“[Brunson] wanted to have them laying on their backs, both looking up at the sky, and you can’t do that when you end at the bottom and you’re looking at the roof,” said Wexler.

It was Brunson who had the idea of framing the Abbott episode around a trip to Smith.

“I loved growing up in Philadelphia and going to this playground,” she said in a video while standing next to the new slide in Burbank. “I just went to have a good time, but I didn’t know the safe and incredible space that Smith was providing to kids from all over Philadelphia, from every neighborhood, from every area, every class — every everything. Everyone was always welcome at Smith Playground.”

That was true long before Brunson’s time. It was open to all races from its opening, says Hoover. “When you look through some of the older photographs, like in the early 1900s, you will definitely see a diversity of races at the slide, and that continues throughout.”

Smith’s archive contains documents showing leaders tracking diversity goals early on, she says — “you know, reports from the director saying ‘we’re trying to do this and we think we’re doing OK, [but] we need to do better.’ So there’s always been this push to be a resource for all kids and all families throughout the city.”

The free-admission policy is meant to ensure that there are no barriers.

“It’s every kind of income category that you find here,” Hoover says. “You see the dad in his SEPTA outfit standing with the dad in his scrubs and just kind of sharing stories about their bouncy boys and how they manage their energy. It’s really an equalizer in that way. And it’s special because of that.”

Smith is special in other ways. Although it had 160,000 visitors in 2023, it feels small-scale and handmade. Its building is sometimes mistaken for another Fairmount Park country mansion, but the formidable light-brick structure with four Ionic-style columns was specially built as a playhouse.

It felt like nothing less than kid paradise one recent sunny Saturday morning. A boy named George was turning 2 and being feted on one of the playhouse’s porches, while two floors below, several toddlers slithered through climbing equipment. Pre-school-age scholars explored a sunny art room appointed with art supplies and books on Georgia O’Keeffe and Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Out on the grounds, any number of children were helping themselves to swings and jungle gyms, and lining up with burlap sacks for joyrides on the slide.

What’s especially striking about the Smith experience is what it doesn’t have. There’s no restaurant, no gift shop, no TV cartoon mascots, no corporate names on play areas — none of the usual commercial trappings found at attractions geared toward the juice-box set and caregivers. A visit to Smith is about unstructured play, trees, and sky, and shutting off the outside world for a few hours.

All this is a conscious part of Smith’s ethos, and while there are no plans to change that, change has found Smith. The dissolution of the trust means that funding must be boosted, so Smith is about to launch a $2 million fundraising campaign. Half the money will go into endowment, the other half to pay for upgrades, renovations, and a new feature. There were once three “P’s” at Smith, Hoover says — the playground and playhouse, and a pool. The return of a pool isn’t likely, but with climate change, some kind of water attraction is being considered.

“The summers are so hot now, we are seeing that having an impact on how long people want to stay,” says Hoover. “We’re coming to an important point to really address that need, to have some way to cool down in the hottest summers,” she says.

Smith earns about 20% of its annual budget of about $1 million from birthday party and wedding rentals, and raises the rest from foundations and individuals. Being featured on Abbott Elementary gives leaders a calling card with funders, though Hoover says being chosen has already achieved something big.

“It’s an acknowledgment of the importance that this institution has to Philadelphia.”

Not that Smith wants for stories of how it has become entwined with the personal histories of many. Hoover was recently talking to a woman who, while visiting with her granddaughter, recalled having had her fourth birthday party there six decades earlier.

“And she said, ‘You know, we were doing the same things, we came down the slide, we were playing with little bikes somewhere.’ And it’s just an amazing thing that people can have that intergenerational connection — doing something that is almost exactly the same as your grandma did.”

As for the new slide in Burbank, it was an elaborate piece of ephemera — disposed of after filming — but one that in its brief life managed to sprinkle some Philly magic on Tinseltown.

“It was not even close — it was the funnest set that we have ever built on this show,” says Whetstone of the slide. “And by fun, I mean studio people were going down it, our producers and directors and writers were going down it, every member of the crew, every kid actor, people from other shows. It brought a lot of joy to a lot of people.”