There’s something to be said for a pool on a hot day. New York City is an urban desert in the summer: the winter winds that whip through the canyons of buildings cease, and heat descends. Many flee the city any chance they get, hoping to quickly forget the smell of reeking curbside garbage. Yet for others, leaving the city isn’t always an option. This has led to a growing recreation frenzy, and the public pools of NYC offer spectacular oases: not the least of which are eleven depression-era pools built under the oversight of infamous urban mastermind Robert Moses all in the summer of 1936.
There’s something to be said for a pool on a hot day. New York City is an urban desert in the summer: the winter winds that whip through the canyons of buildings cease, and heat descends. Subways become underground ovens. Many flee the city any chance they get, hoping to quickly forget the smell of reeking curbside garbage. Yet for others, leaving the city isn’t always an option. The dense city offers many options for recreation in the summer from shady parks to beaches. The public pools of NYC offer spectacular oases for cool fun: including eleven depression-era pools built under the oversight of infamous urban mastermind Robert Moses all in the summer of 1936. These pools were amoung the first civic structures to offer public swimming for all as a form of recreation.
The 11 pools were built by Robert Moses and mayor Fiorello LaGuardia. Moses was responsible for much of the public construction in NYC from the 1930s well into the 1960s. He wielded an immense amount of power and influence, and shaped the city in a totalizing way. Many remember him as a tyrannical pseudo-tragic figure, in large part because of his depiction in Robert Caro’s 1974 biography, The Power Broker, but still more benefit unknowingly from the things he brought into the world: from his vast expansion of the park system and planting of thousands of trees citywide to his design for the Triborough Bridge. Moses perceived that the people of NYC needed elements of public infrastructure like public parks and housing projects, and had the power to realize what he thought were appropriate responses to those needs. The pools, all built in underserved or economically challenged areas, brought relief from the punishing heat to many who had limited options for cooling off or recreation.
The NYC Parks Department still provides relief and escape today for the city via over 60 public pools. Their provision is largely the legacy of Robert Moses and the pools built in the the 1930s, funded by the federal Works Progress Administration (WPA). With street level temperatures that can rise well over 30° Celsius (90° F) and high humidity in the summer, the heat is like a viscous substance that immerses the city. The black asphalt streets radiate like an open oven, throwing heat up from the ground. Even the evenings offer little respite: high humidity and the urban heat island effect keep the city feeling warm, often too warm for comfort. For much of the population escaping to The Hamptons isn’t an option, and an air conditioner is an expensive “commodity.”
The Works Progress Administration (WPA) was a federal program put into place by depression-era US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt as part of the New Deal. The WPA employed 3 million people at its peak on a range of projects and programs throughout the United States from 1935 to 1943. Moses, a consummate politician was successful in securing major funds for WPA projects in New York City, including the 11 pools built in 1936.
The design team of the WPA pools was led by architect Aymar Embury II and landscape architect Gilmore D. Clarke under the direction of Robert Moses. All were built using basic inexpensive construction materials including concrete, brick and steel. The layout of each pool complex was also the same, with a central bathhouse at the entrance on axis with the largest pool. Alongside a large pool for general use, each complex had a diving pool and wading pool. The design was standardized for easy repetition, adapted to each site and differentiated stylistically but with a modern vocabulary consistent throughout. This enabled the city to complete all the pools on time in the summer of 1936, and lowered overall costs. The city also provided recreational programs to encourage use of the pools, such as free swim instruction for all city residents. The NYC Department of Parks and Recreation still offers free swimming lessons at the 11 WPA pools and others throughout the city. This is especially important in underserved communities where learning to swim would otherwise be difficult.
However, the story of the WPA pools is not all happy: time was not kind to Brooklyn’s McCarren Park Pool, which, like many of the WPA pools, fell into disrepair by the early 1980s. While the other ten WPA-era pools were restored in the mid-80s, McCarren’s planned renovation was stalled by residents fearing change would attract undesirable outsiders. Public interest in renewing the site was awoken in the 2000s, as gentrification brought a new demographic to the area, one that was lacking in major funds but was flush with creativity and social-political agency. Faced with limited options for informal summer recreation, McCarren Park was adopted as a venue for fun, including the empty pool basin with cracked blue paint slowly flaking off. Summer festivals, farmers’ markets and group sports started to occupy the empty complex after an initial influx of private cash from a music event ensured basic safety measures. It wasn’t long before corporate events managers and the city took notice and added more formal offerings to the park’s palette of offerings. The Bloomberg administration, custodians of New York City’s reformation in an era of gilded turbo-urbanity, eventually provided the funds to restore McCarren Park Pool as a functioning pool in 2012. Gentrification in this case assisted in restoring a public asset with a lineage from a seemingly more altruistic social era.
McCarren Park Pool found new life in old forms in a renovation by Rogers Marvel Architects. The integrity of the original design was maintained throughout, and many historical elements were restored or repurposed. The three pools, large enough to allow 6,800 simultaneous swimmers in 1936, were modified to suit contemporary needs while maintaining most of the impressive capacity. The large central pool was made slightly smaller to accommodate accessibility measures and other modernizations, and along with the wading pool, both were restored to sparkling aqua condition. The diving pool – impossible in an America that has grown ever the more litigious, and cautious with its children over seven decades – was recast as a beach volleyball court. The line on opening day in 2012 and on subsequent days have often stretched around the chain link fence, and 2013 promises to be even hotter - and even busier.
The future of public infrastructure for swimming in the United States is finding new energy as civic activities and the general public start occupying waterfronts now vacated by industry and the cleaning of waterways becomes a priority. As these waterfronts change there seems to be growing interest in reclaiming natural waterways as swimming-places. New options for swimming – and summertime cooling – are opening up in American cities, beyond in-ground outdoor pools made from concrete. The Plus Pool project is one of the more innovative and ambitious new waterfront swimming ideas: a gigantic floating pool in the Hudson River using its water purified on site. Currently in a partially crowd-funded test-phase, the pool is eagerly anticipated as another public oasis to counteract the summertime urban desert.
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