Opinion: Despite Obstacles, New York City On Cusp of Aquatics Renaissance

Opinion: Despite Obstacles, New York City On Cusp of Aquatics Renaissance

Earlier this month, on September 10, the New York City summer swim schedule officially ended; outdoor pools are now shuttered until next May. The city’s 14 miles of public beaches will no longer be staffed with lifeguards. But New Yorkers will continue to swim in the still-refreshing ocean surf—at their peril. And perilous it can be: there were six drownings in one of the city’s hottest summers on record.

Limited availability at public swimming pools and a scarcity of lifeguards this summer not only made for a dangerous combination. Water safety—and New Yorkers—continued to suffer because of this shortfall.

But while it may be hard to tell as yet, the situation is actually improving, albeit slowly, thanks to the efforts of enlightened politicians, devoted aquatics experts and a previously untapped reservoir of pool time in NYC schools.

Too Many Swimmers and Not Enough Guards or Pools

To adequately protect the city’s 14 miles of public beaches and 79 outdoor swimming pools, NYC Parks, responsible for the city’s 29,000 acres of park land and associated facilities, sought to hire 1,400 lifeguards for the months of June, July and August. For the second year in a row, Parks was able to fill only 900 of those spots, which resulted in guard gaps at some of the city’s most treacherous waters.

Photo Courtesy: NYC Parks

On a recent 11-mile walk along the Rockaway beachfront, a scant 40 lifeguard stands were manned—one every quarter mile—leaving long stretches of open waters unprotected. Due to a struggle between Parks and the city’s lifeguard union, guard assignments, and safety, were often in flux, with numerous posts empty. This was a factor in a tragic drowning in the Rockaways last July.

NY Times: Why New York City’s Lifeguard Shortage Is Even Worse This Year

Reduced personnel the past few years has also forced Parks to cut back on its free summer swim program. Begun in 1938 under Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, as many as 30,000 New York City adults and children annually learned to swim in Parks’ pools. This summer only 1,000 spots were available in locations scattered across the city’s five boroughs.

For decades, private and public camp programs have relied on city pools to host swim programs for their thousands of campers. The past two years, numerous local camps could not offer their campers learn-to-swim lessons or pool time because Parks lacked sufficient staff to accommodate large groups of camp kids.

Put simply, there are not enough pools for the city’s 8.8 million inhabitants. At a recent symposium on New York City’s aquatics situation, New York City Councilmember Shekar Krishnan of the 25th District, which covers Elmhurst and Jackson Heights in Queens, said his district of 165,000 residents contains no public pools.

Zero.

And Krishnan’s district is no outlier. Almost half of the city’s 51 council districts do not have public pools, giving New York the distinction of having perhaps the worst per capita access to public pools of any American metropolis.

Photo Courtesy: NYC Council

The NYC Council to the Rescue

But there is reason for optimism. A recent push in the Council by Krishnan and fellow members Selvena Brooks-Powers and Julie Menin has raised expectations for increased swim instruction and opened the door to underutilized pool space in public school buildings.

Concerned with the city’s record on swim instruction, water safety and lifeguard training, last March these councilmembers introduced bills in the Council mandating that Parks aggressively—and transparently—address what Krishnan called an annual aquatics crisis. A bill sponsored by Menin will require free swim lessons for every NYC child 13 and under. Krishnan’s bill mandates that Parks report on lifeguard training and pool staffing. Brooks-Powers’ bill directs Parks to seek sites where new pools can be built and to open DOE pools—which number 47 in varying sizes, age and condition—to teach children and adults year-round.

School pools cannot cover all the aquatics needs of a city as large as New York. But if managed efficiently and maintained properly, DOE pools could significantly improve water safety and learn-to-swim opportunities for all New Yorkers. Currently, Parks oversees 12 indoor pools, but at any given time only six are operational. Making pools in schools more accessible—many are already in use for after school learn-to-swim or swim team programs but are difficult to access—will allow Parks and non-profit providers to expand swim instruction and lifeguard training during the school year and in summer months.

Additionally, a $5.3 million dollar increase in Parks’ budget this fiscal year, also pushed by the City Council, will go to hiring additional aquatics instructors and lifeguards. The goal is to double the agency’s Swim for Life program to provide swim lessons for as many as 12,000 public schools second graders.

There are perhaps 500,000 children in the city who cannot swim, a reality that falls most heavily on Black and Brown children. Couple that with few opportunities for recreation on hot days, and greater effort must be made to combat New York’s swim needs.

New York City Must Get Creative About Pool Time

Parks needs to confront the city’s lack of indoor pool space by seeking creative solutions for new and existing facilities. The greatest era of NYC pool construction took place a century ago under Robert Moses—the city’s Master Builder—and the Works Progress Administration. To bring existing facilities up to date, knowledgeable pool manufacturers could and should dig into the city’s vast array of facilities and either renovate or install pools appropriate for a variety of uses, producing a renaissance of what once was a rich urban aquatics culture. This may mean:

Bringing up to code any DOE pool that can reasonably be upgraded to accommodate increased in-school and after school learn-to-swim instruction; or
Installing a competition-ready pool on a vacant city lot and then cover it with a bubble for year-round use by children, adults, swim teams, water polo clubs, scuba divers, etc.; or
Not-for profit providers making deals for time with private pools in residences and hotels, thereby bridging the shortfall of public facilities that has persisted in New York for too long.

The point is that creativity can and must be brought to bear to craft a solution to New York City’s unfair and dangerous swim situation, one that understands—and responds to—the aquatic aspirations of all its residents.

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