According to the Parks Department website, the Metropolitan Recreation Center has been locked up since January 2025 because of poor air circulation.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery week I take the 62 bus to the L train to Lower Manhattan because that’s the only pool open for women three times a week,\u201d said Rifka Friedman. \u201cFinancially, I’m paying $67 a month when I paid $25 a year here.\u201d<\/p>\n
As people\u2019s pockets continue to hurt and a vital part of their week is still missing, no real updates about a reopening have come about. <\/p>\n
Even city officials say they\u2019re unsure what exactly the holdup is. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not a money issue,\u201d said Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso at a rally. \u201cThis is about parks being inefficient, showing why people are upset and over it with government, why people don’t trust us \u2014 because we can’t get simple things like this done.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile they spent close to 10 months trying to make temporary solutions work,\u201d said Council Member Lincoln Restler, \u201cthey didn’t do jack to move forward with the long-term capital project. So now, here we are a year and a half later, and we’re still years away from the pool reopening. That is unacceptable. The parks department has failed us.\u201d <\/p>\n
The loss of the rec center is not only a matter of health concern, but it\u2019s also a loss to the sense of community that so many people built there. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been swimming here as a 12-year-old,\u201d said Friedman. \u201cI learned how to swim at the Met pool.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a pool where Jewish women and Muslim women swim side by side in harmony,\u201d said another longtime recreation center member. <\/p>\n
During a City Council hearing on Monday, the new commissioner for the Parks Department said she understands the impact, and she\u2019s committed to making sure this community lifeline is restored. An exact date is still not confirmed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"According to the Parks Department website, the Metropolitan Recreation Center has been locked up since January 2025 because…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":175520,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,9,24,63,44315,1424],"class_list":["post-175519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-recreation-center","tag-williamsburg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175519\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/175520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}