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For those of us who can't pull a Samantha Jones and con their way into Soho House, there's good news: NYC's public pools open today! Sure, they're not all quite as glamorous as some of the city's more fancy rooftop pools, but efforts are officially underway to rectify that.
The city has launched its "Cool Pools" pilot program, with five old-school pools debuting much-needed makeovers. The $350,000 initiative gave new paint jobs, umbrellas, chairs and art to Fisher Pool in East Elmhurst, Mapes Pool in East Tremont, Sheltering Arms Pool in Harlem, West Brighton Pool in Staten Island and the Douglas and DeGraw Pool in Gowanus. The pools look much cleaner, spacious and less like relics of Tony Manero's New York.
These chosen cool pools got some programming upgrades, including more aerobics classes, yoga, zumba and children's scavenger hunts. And if your local dive is looking a little dilapidated, have hope; more improvements may be on the way. "If we can do it, we want to expand to more places," NYC Parks Commisioner Mitchell Silver told ABC7.
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