The New York Times Gets it (Mostly) Right on NYC Swimming

I don’t know who Mara Gay is—I don’t pay attention to the Times’ editorial board (unless they do something stupid). I don’t watch MSNBC (according to her bio, Ms. Gay is a contributor there). But I do know swimming and pools in New York City, so Gay’s piece—Too Many New Yorkers Can’t Swim. It’s Time to Change That—resonates with me.

Mostly.

The editorial is on the mark about the dearth of swim instruction and pools in our city. With more than 8 million inhabitants, New York City—home to 100+ public outdoor and indoor pools—has among the worst per capita access to aquatics for American urban dwellers. The Trust for Public Land estimates there are .8 public pools per 100,000 New Yorkers. Half of those pools are available less than three months of the year. The city’s Parks Department opens its 53 outdoor pools in the months of July, August and parts of September.

I contacted a NYC resident who may be one of the best situated to assess the Times’ opinion on swimming in my city. Ken Moore is a certified Performance Enhancement Specialist who works extensively with aquatic athletes, including members of the US women’s masters water polo team that will compete next month at the FINA World Masters Championships in Kyushu, Japan. Moore was impressed by Gay bringing swimming problems to the forefront. “Mara Gay made an important point regarding New Yorkers who don’t know how to swim,” he wrote in an email, “In addition, NYC elected leaders lack the political will to make this a health priority for all New Yorkers, regardless of means.

“It’s essential that learning how to swim should be a health priority, one that is a bridge to closing the gap of health disparity,” he wrote. “Learning how to swim provides insights into one’s on health.

“How many more lives [do] we need to lose in order for society to ACT?” Moore asked emphatically.

Last weekend another NYC life was almost lost to drowning. A five-year-old boy was plucked out of the water at the McCarren Park pool by a bystander, while the pool’s lifeguards were frozen in their seats. If not for the quick thinking of Anthony Torres, who a decade ago served as a lifeguard, there would have been an unmitigated tragedy, similar to what Ms. Gay emphasizes as entirely preventable.

McCarren Park Pool. Photo: Marvel Architects.

But it’s not just swim instruction and qualified lifeguards that are in short supply in the city’s most populous borough. The Brooklyn pool availability has also been trending in the wrong direction the past few years, and not just because of Covid-19.

Much-needed pool renovations at Fort Hamilton High School and James Madison High School—two of the borough’s busier indoor pools—took place in recent years, meaning that their extended absence put pressure on other facilities to support local swim programs. One such pool is at St. Francis Brooklyn College in downtown Brooklyn. Home to the Terrier men’s and women’s collegiate swim and water polo teams, SFC hosts numerous Catholic high school teams, firefighters, police officers, seniors, movie shoots and everything else aquatic. Sold earlier this year, the St. Francis campus is slated for demolition, likely in 2023. The pool will close at the end of this year, leaving a huge void in the Brooklyn aquatic scene.

The Union Temple pool, located on the 7th floor in a building on northeast side of Prospect Park, was shuttered a year ago due to legal and insurance issues. Devoted local swimmers hope it will reopen but no notification has been forthcoming.

But these facility losses pale in comparison to the issues that Ms. Gay raises. During a normal summer there’s barely enough swim instruction for millions of NYC children, who during the months of July and August eagerly seek solace in the refreshing confines of an outdoor pool. In year’s past, NYC Parks would offer free rudimentary water safety instruction, which they have done since 1938. Lifeguard shortages this year not only forced Parks to suspend this program, but it has also caused many pools and stretches of beaches to be intermittently closed.

[Commentary: Why Community Learn-to-Swim is an Essential Part of Summer in NYC]

Gay is absolutely right, we need to get kids to swim, keep them safe and end the bureaucratic snafus that prevent New Yorkers from acquiring a skill as basic as learning to read and write. [RM1] I noted that Ms. Gay indulges in ocean swims; I grew up at the Jersey Shore and have spent many days luxuriating in the Atlantic Ocean, bobbing around like a cork. I was fortunate to be sent to a pretty rigorous swim program as a seven-year-old; swimming is a skill and pleasure—like riding a bicycle—that I’ve never lost.

But this is a point her editorial misses entirely. Kids (and adults) should be taught to swim to prevent drowning. But they should be encouraged to get this easily transferable (by the right instructor) skill because swimming is such an enjoyable form of exercise. Sure, swimming can cause nuisance ailments—like swimmers’ ear—but, by engaging all parts of the body will placing minimal strain on major joints, swimming is not only a great workout, it helps lengthen life.

Brooklyn Swims! staff: Kevaughn Mark, Aaron Gershkovich, Owen Randazzo, Ethan Sanadze, Irakli Sanadze, Otis Alves and Michael Randazzo. Missing: Max Sidorenko and Gregory Terentyev.

Why can’t everyone have access to this type of life-preserving activity? New Yorkers have enough stress just getting from point A to point B; access to pools should be a right rather than a privilege available only to those with big enough bankrolls (a staple of the current luxury apartment boom is in-house pools) or a contact at a school of college.

That’s my second issue with Ms. Gay’s piece. There’s no “how to” approach to change this situation. She’s suitably outraged that the budget for pools in NYC is paltry when compared to the city’s public education budget—somewhere around $30 billion, but she’s not tying the two together. NYC Parks, through the inspired efforts of Peter Kohnstamm, worked regularly with local pools to teach swim skills to public school second graders. This and other free or affordable learn-to-swim programs have apparently vanished, leaving this important educational practice to unscrupulous operators who charge as much as $55 for thirty minutes of group instruction.

That’s got to change. I’m part of Inclusive Community Wellness, a Brooklyn-based non-profit, that is tackling this issue head on by offering pay what you wish swim instruction to 4 – 12-year-olds at the LIU Brooklyn pool. In a week of operation we’ve been inundated with requests. LIU has generously stepped in and donated more pool time, which we’ll use to get as many children as possible in the water.

But it’s not enough. To come back to Gay and the Times, it IS time for a change. So, let’s all get active and tell Mayor Eric Adams his health commissioner Ashwin Vasan, and various other city officials that the right to safe access is as important as any other healthy choice for all New Yorkers.