Jump in! : Astoria Park pool reopens after renovations

Astoria Pool reopened on Thursday after two years of renovations as pools citywide open for the summer season. Eagle photo by Ryan Schwach 

By Ryan Schwach

After being closed down for renovations last summer, the Astoria Park pool, the city’s largest swimming pool, mostly opened up to the public again Thursday, along with public pools throughout the five boroughs.

City officials, including Mayor Eric Adams, made their way to the park on the sunny Thursday to christen the reopening of the pool at Astoria Park, one of Queens’ seven public pools, which underwent a $19 million restoration over the past two years.

Though plenty of Astorians told the Eagle they were happy to get back to swimming in their local pool, Thursday’s opening also highlighted some of the budgetary and staffing challenges that had made enjoying the nice weather a little bit more difficult for the Adams administration.

The Astoria Pool, which was built by New Deal money and had its inaugural summer in 1936, was shut in order to undergo the millions in renovations to the pool’s shell, gutter, deck and filtration systems, among other fixes.

On Tuesday, as the pool once again welcomed Queens locals, would-be swimmers of all ages waited in a line wrapped around Astoria Park for the first dip in nearly two years. Some residents couldn’t wait any longer.

“I've been ready for it to open for the last week,” said Lisa Mulero, an Astoria resident who visited the pool with her two kids.

With her was another mother, Erin Gilbreth, and her son Finn.

“It's just a fantastic way to eat up a few hours, soak up the sun, get some vitamin D and relax,” Gilbreth said.

New York City pools have stringent rules for what you can and can’t bring in with you however, including electronics like cell phones. But Gilbreth said those rules were a pro, not a con.

“It's a great opportunity to be present, because you're not allowed to have your phone,” Gilbreth said. “It's the ultimate unplug.”

During the pool’s closure, locals said they had to find other places to cool off last summer, like going to the beach or venturing out to other pools and water parks.

“We had to go to a different location, but this is the best pool we have,” said Anna P., an Astoria resident who has been swimming at Astoria Park since 1975. “It was about time they reopened it.”

The Astoria pool and nearly all of New York City’s other 49 publicly accessible swimming pools reopened simultaneously on Thursday, bringing some solace from the heat for New Yorkers. The openings also provided some solace for Adams, who was able to celebrate an on time and on budget project amidst tense budget negotiations with the City Council and other political issues.

“This is a really exciting place, we put the money in it, we did it,” Adams said. “This reconstruction is really going to provide an entire summer of fun and activity…It is hot this summer, but we're going to cool down in our pools.”

Earlier in the week, the administration launched Swim NYC, which invests one billion dollars into the city’s public pools.

“It will help us build more pools and improve our existing pools in all five boroughs,” Adams said.

Astoria Pool, the largest in the city, reopened after undergoing $19 million in renovations. Eagle photo by Ryan Schwach 

Despite the investment, fiscal restraints remain. Adams declined on Thursday to commit to using one percent of the city’s budget to fund the Parks Department, a commitment he made when first campaigning for mayor.

Adams’ proposal for the budget actually includes a $55 million cut to the Parks Department’s budget.

Previous cuts, as well as an ongoing lifeguard shortage, meant that part of the pool could not open on Thursday, contributing to a slow moving line outside the pool.

“We need to make sure our parks are fully funded and that we can have lifeguards stationed everywhere,” Borough President Donovan Richards said during his poolside remarks on Thursday.

Astoria Councilmember Tiffany Cabán, a progressive member often at odds with the mayor’s policies, spoke at the pool opening on Thursday, but later expressed her issues with Adams’ budgetary approaches toward the city’s parks.

In a phone conversation later in the day Thursday, Cabán called it a “yes, and” situation.

“Families rely on this, my parents grew up going to the Astoria Pool, but this is a mayor who ran on saying that he was going to dedicate at least one percent of the budget to Parks, and we have not seen that yet,” she said.

The Council’s budget response from April called parks “vital contributors to the physical and mental well-being of New Yorkers and communities,” and called for restoring cuts to the department.

“We can't look at these things in a vacuum,” Cabán said. “We absolutely can say, ‘Hey, it's good that we've got our pools, that they're open, but we need longer hours. We need to make sure that we have the resources to keep our parks clean and safe.’ It's certainly been an inconsistency from his administration. There's a lot of work to do there.”

Thursday’s opening also highlighted another Adams administration difficulty – a lifeguard shortage.

During the press conference, Adams said the city has over 600 total lifeguards on staff, more than they had at this time last year, but around 400 lifeguards short of what the city needs to fully staff all of its pools and beaches.

That issue was displayed on Thursday as those would-be swimmers wrapped around Astoria Park were forced to wait to get into the water, and then placed into a small section of the larger and olympic-size pool due to the shortage.

Lifeguard shortages have been an issue at the city’s public pools and beaches in recent years, and although contract negotiations concluded with raises over the off season, the shortages persisted.  Eagle photo by Ryan Schwach 

“We need to be giving [lifeguards] more money, we need to make it more incentivized,” Cabán said. “So we don't have those long lines for kids waiting to beat the heat and get in the cool water and be able to enjoy the pool.”

Over the summer, the city renegotiated lifeguard contracts, which included some raises for the city employees.

“We're doing everything in our power to hire more lifeguards,” Adams said.

A few of his administration’s officials – like Office of Emergency Management Commissioner Zach Iscol – celebrated with a big leap into the pool alongside local kids.

The mayor did not take a dip however, remarking it would be a “scandal” if he did so in swim trunks, despite having done it at beach openings in the past.

Richards also did not jump in – wearing a Mets hat after a positive stretch for the team – since he was attending a graduation ceremony immediately after.

Cabán recalled her parents growing up swimming in Astoria Pool.

“My grandmother was a single mother in NYCHA housing who really, really struggled to get by,” she said. “Vacations were not a thing, camps, day camps, sleepaway, that was not a thing. But what was a thing was Astoria pool.”

Astorians were excited to get back into the pool on Thursday, but many had to wait in a line wrapping around the park due to staffing shortages at the newly reopened pool.  Eagle photo by Ryan Schwach 

“This is what public safety looks like, when we have fully funded parks and pools,” she added.

All of New York City’s outdoor public pools are open from 11 a.m. through 7 p.m. daily, with a break for pool cleaning between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m.