One Halo Player Is Recreating Bushwick’s Beloved Myrtle/Broadway Intersection As Accurately As Possible

Even if you don’t live in Bushwick, a neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York, you’ve probably seen the Myrtle/Broadway intersection. You know that one infamous photo of an unholy Dunkin Donuts-Checkers-Popeyes trifecta next to a subway stop? Yep, that’s Myrtle/Broadway. It even has its own Know Your Meme page. Now one Halo player, Corey Cash, is taking the meme a step further.

Cash, a Bushwick resident, is in the process of recreating Myrtle/Broadway using Halo Infinite’s versatile Forge mapmaking tool. Why? In part to honor a deceased friend who used to live in the area, but also because “Myrtle/Broadway offers the most dynamic, multilayer play experience for a big team FPS vs other Brooklyn intersections.”

“From the street level to the station platform, you have many vantage and hiding spots to keep the fight interesting,” he told Aftermath.

Cash, who builds restaurants for a living, isn’t just eyeballing it. He’s committed to accurately realizing the spirit of the place, if not every last detail.

“I pulled a lot of Google maps, Department of Building[s] plans, Department of Environmental Protections and ConEd diagrams to reference street layouts, building plans, and electrical and sewer system layouts,” Cash said. “Not all parts of the map are 1:1 scale, but referencing all this certainly helped. You’ll be able to run under Broadway via open manhole covers and ConEd’s underground maintenance tunnels and DEP’s sewers.”

Cash feels this is important because he wants Myrtle/Broadway to transcend time and space even more than it already has.

"I have a lot of the underbelly of this map exposed due to the fact that the map is built to look as though a fragment of Brooklyn was detached from Earth and is now an asteroid floating in space," said Cash. "I did this because I didn’t want to waste memory on a cityscape in the background that wasn’t playable, and the present Brooklyn timeline doesn’t line up with Halo’s timeline, so making it a remnant of Brooklyn floating in space seemed on brand."

As we’ve all suspected, the Dunkin-Checkers-Popeye hydra can survive anything, even the end of the world. But that’s not the only landmark Cash is focused on nailing the look and feel of.

“I felt the JZM [subway] stop was the most important to get down correctly – and the street layout,” he said. “Then the icons; the Dunkin-Checkers-Popeyes trifecta was a must. Mr Kiwi, Market Hotel, and all the bodegas are there and open as a part of the field of play. Bars like Alaska, Jade, and Skytown are due to be built. Little nuances and the community here give Myrtle/Broadway its character. Will certainly need to script the sock vendor’s soul and funk music into the map somehow. A must.”

Right now, Cash isn’t thinking too far ahead. He just wants “both Brooklyn and Xbox to have as much fun with the map as I am.” He does, however, plan on creating other iconic portions of Brooklyn in Halo once he’s finished with this map. It’s gonna be a tough act to follow, though.

"It’s hard to beat Myrtle/Broadway,” Cash said.