We Need MORE Swimming in Brooklyn
FORT GREENE, BROOKLYN. If anyone wonders just how great the demand is for kids’ swimming lesson in New York City, send out an email to select parents and community leaders with the words “swimming” and “free” and see what happens.
Last Friday morning I did just that for an innovative swim program that District 13’s Community Education Council (CEC) is sponsoring at LIU Brooklyn’s pool. In case you don’t know it, the CECs were established during Mike Bloomberg’s administration as parent- and community-led advisory bodies tasked with improving local school districts. They replaced the Community School Boards that were attached to each of the Department of Education’s (DOE) 32 school districts.
So, I sent this email out with the benign (or so I thought) subject: “D13 Students, Parents + DOE Teachers + Staff Swim Free @ LIU”
You might say: Wow, that’s dumb! What did I expect?!
Photo: Tony Davis
It was not just a wild shot in the dark. In more than a decade of running aquatics programs in Downtown Brooklyn I have sent out many emails about swimming. In fact, last summer, I sent out a similar notice about free swim opportunities at LIU and got 120 responses over a weekend.
This time, I severely misjudged my audience.
I realized there might be a tsunami of interest breaking when Perry Williams, who spreads the word about local community happenings better than anyone I know (and was also promoting the D13 CEC program) mentioned that Sharon Pulliam at PS 93, a D13 school located in Crown Heights, had created a flyer she had emailed to parents.
As my phone repeatedly buzzed with calls and texts, I watched my Gmail inbox fill up with messages from parents imploring me for additional information. It’s now Sunday morning—with our first session of the CEC’s program to take place in a few hours—and I’m still sorting through the 500+ emails, texts and phone calls. (Sadly, no one sent a carrier pigeon; that would have been something!). I’ve gotten requests from as close to LIU as PS 20 and as far away as a mom who now lives in the Bronx (but whose children attend PS 11, a D13 school in Clinton Hill).
Many of the responses tell me the same thing: there’s no swimming available for children in our community. Which is both surprising and heart-breaking. Surprising because we have pools at LIU, Medgar Evers College (whose pool has been shut since the Covid-19 pandemic) and at the Major Owens Center. Heart-breaking because every child should have an opportunity to learn-to-swim (I’ve mentioned numerous times that New York City has the lowest per-capita access to indoor pools of any American city with a population over 100,000).
[Brooklyn Summer Swim Program Provides Memories for a Lifetime]
So, to all you parents who are telling me (and many others): WE NEED MORE SWIM LESSONS FOR OUR KIDS – I hear you! I’ll keep at it until we find a permanent solution.
To those politicians and community leaders (including the Community Boards responsible for shaping the fabric of local neighborhoods): LISTEN! This is not a problem that’s going away; in fact, last weekend the St. Francis College pool, which—thanks to Carl Quigley was one of the city’s most community-accessible aquatics facilities—was shuttered for good, a victim of a booming real estate market.
Photo: Tony Davis
And, if you wonder who cares about these things, thank Cynthia McKnight (D13 CEC member), Perry Williams, Hazel Seivwright (LIU administrator) and Maureen Boucher, Oleg Gershkovich, Joan Moriarty and Naomi Relnick—the folks who run the Brooklyn Hustle Waterpolo Club and make it possible for me to dream of better aquatic times in Brooklyn.