{"id":281724,"date":"2026-06-29T22:59:25","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T22:59:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/281724\/"},"modified":"2026-06-29T22:59:25","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T22:59:25","slug":"pool-report-parks-dept-leaves-red-hookers-hot-and-bothered-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/281724\/","title":{"rendered":"Pool Report: Parks Dept. Leaves Red Hookers Hot And Bothered \u2014\u00a0Again!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Talk about a long hot summer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For the second straight year<\/a>, the Parks Department has failed to open the Red Hook Pool on schedule, citing, for the second straight year, an equipment failure that was only discovered two days before Saturday\u2019s long-planned opening day.<\/p>\n

Residents of the hard-scrabble peninsular neighborhood \u2014\u00a0where 35 percent of the residents are below the poverty line<\/a>, with median incomes that are less than half the citywide median \u2014\u00a0are burning mad that the same Parks Department has failed to open the same pool for the same reason in two consecutive years.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s terrible because it\u2019s the second year in a row that it\u2019s happening and the kids in Red Hook need this pool,\u201d said Noel S., who has lived most of his 46 years in Brooklyn, most recently in the neighborhood. \u201cYou have to remember these are under-priviledged kids. They don\u2019t have means to go to Coney Island. That\u2019s a $6 round trip.\u201d<\/p>\n

The closure was revealed only on Friday afternoon in an otherwise laudatory pool story in Hell Gate<\/a>. Calls to the Parks Department confirmed the news, but revealed additional details. For instance, a Parks spokesperson said that \u201cmotors and other equipment\u201d in \u201cthe filter plant beneath the pool\u201d were damaged during preparations for the season opening on Thursday, June 25 \u2014 just two days before the pool was slated to open.<\/p>\n

The pool was subsequently drained and dried \u201cto minimize damage.\u201d<\/p>\n

The agency said it did not discover the damage during an end-of-summer inspection last year. At the beginning of last summer, the agency blamed a crucial pipe that crumbled as the pool was being filled for the season, which is typically done just days before opening. Last year, city employees needed to fabricate several custom parts.<\/p>\n

This year, the Parks Department says it is \u201cordering of replacement equipment\u201d and hopes to have the pool ready \u201cbefore the end of July\u201d (the end of July is 33 pool days from today).<\/p>\n

Last year, the long-neglected, 90-year-old pool did not end up opening until mid-August, after the hottest part of the summer. This year\u2019s heat wave will hit as early as Tuesday. And Red Hook is considered particularly subject to the urban heat island effect<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s foul!\u201d said Quwan McLaughlin, 30, who was playing basketball across the street from the pool when he and his three young kids were told that the swimming hole was closed. \u201cWe were going to go to the pool today and on Thursday, because it\u2019s going to be 100 degrees. My sons were excited because they know the pool opens the first day after the last day of school.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last year\u2019s failure led then-Comptroller Brad Lander and Council Member Alexa Aviles to blast then-Mayor Eric Adams<\/a> for underfunding the Parks Department and call for the Parks Department to offer transportation to other Brooklyn pools, such as the Douglass-Degraw Pool and the Sunset Park Pool, both of which are sort of nearby, but difficult to reach given Red Hook\u2019s isolated geography. (We asked the Parks Department about such a shuttle this year, but the agency did not respond to that question.)<\/p>\n

The pool itself \u2014 a lingering triumph of Robert Moses<\/a> \u2014 is a key amenity in a neighborhood that is \u201cconstantly overlooked for city resources,\u201d one advocate said last year. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhether that\u2019s our parks, our public transit to protected bike lanes \u2026 Red Hook is always getting shafted in terms of the resources available to most New Yorkers,\u201d said Kathy Park Price, a spokesperson for New Yorkers for Parks.<\/p>\n

The closure, she added, is a \u201csymbol of the overarching lack of funding for parks in the budget.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Fancy signs let residents know the bad news in Red Hook. Photo: Emily Smith<\/p>\n

The Parks Department did have a small budget for something, however: More than a dozen custom-made, professionally printed signs have been installed on the fences around the pool, officially the Sol Goldman Recreation Center, reading, \u201cDue to the sudden, unforeseen failure of mechanical equipment, Red Hook Pool is temporarily closed. We are working to make repairs as quickly as possible. We appreciate your patience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Patience may be in short supply as the mercury rises.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving a pool keeps kids out of trouble,\u201d added Noel. S. \u201cThey\u2019re not up to mischief if they\u2019re swimming.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Talk about a long hot summer. For the second straight year, the Parks Department has failed to open…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":281725,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-281724","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"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281724","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=281724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281724\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/281725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}