Gov proposes plan to get NYers safely in the water
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Governor Kathy Hochul’s New York SWIMS plan aims to expand access to city pools like the one at Roy Wilkins Park in St. Albans, which received a $55 million allocation for a new pool and renovations last year. Photo via New York City Parks Department/Twitter
By Ryan Schwach
The governor and mayor announced on Friday a plan to bolster swimming education and safety to New York, a particular issue for Queens where access to public swimming pools and education surrounding its coastal waters has been subpar for years.
The plan, called Statewide Investment In More Swimming – aptly acronymized to New York SWIMS – looks to expand New Yorker’s access to the water, as well as provide more education so they understand its dangers, as well as its benefits.
“We're going to invest millions of dollars to build new pools and swimming facilities all across the state to help every New Yorker learn how to swim and keep people safe in and around the water,” Hochul said in Manhattan on Friday.
“Let's focus on common sense solutions to everyday problems,” she added, “This isn't complicated.”
As part of the proposal, which comes as part of Hochul’s upcoming State of the State address, the state and city will put $60 million in to create “floating pools” – which are also called “plus pools” due to their shape – which can be put on New York’s waterways.
She added that the plan will also provide grants to municipalities struggling with a lifeguard shortage, something that has plagued the city in particular in recent years and created even less access to pools and shores for New Yorkers.
The plans aren’t coming out of the blue, drowning – chiefly among children – has reached highs in the last few years. Two-hundred and thirty New Yorkers drowned in 2021 alone.
Nationwide, drowning is the leading cause of death for one- to four-year-olds, and second for five- to 14-year-olds.
“If children knew how to swim, there'd be thousands of more young people growing up in our communities, where families are intact, enjoying life,” Hochul said.
The pain, however, officials said is not felt equality, with low-income communities and communities of color facing the most disparity when it comes to access to water and swimming education.
“Low-income communities of color have suffered decades of disinvestment in swimming facilities, a lot of people didn't think it mattered,” said Hochul. “Some counties have phenomenal facilities…but this is not available in every community.”
Mayor Eric Adams echoed similar sentiments in Manhattan on Friday, speaking in support of the governor’s initiatives.
“Your ethnicity should not determine your destiny,” he said. “And it should not determine what you should have in your community, and it's a bold change, it's a different shift. Because historically, those who were in power had these things in their community.”
“I didn't have a swimming pool in my community,” he added. “I had a water hose and hopefully the fire hydrant was turned on. That was my pool.”
Swim safety advocates locally were pleased to hear the governor and mayor’s enthusiasm towards the subject, but wonder what the plan will specifically mean for local communities.
“I was so happy to have her address this in the way that she did, acknowledging that there is a tremendous gap of any type of aquatic infrastructure across the state and a willingness to start closing that gap,” said Shawn Slevin, the founder the executive director of Swim Strong, a swimming education foundation. “A number of things that they're going to do that seem to have much broader application statewide. I'm just not sure how much of that hits New York City.”
“We have tremendous and acute chronic need here in New York City, so that still remains to be seen,” Slevin added.
Slevin and her organization have focused on swim safety for nearly two decades in Queens, and more recently have focused on maintaining aquatic education as water becomes ever more present due to climate change.
“[Hochul] understands what's happening from climate change across the state and this is part of the solution,” she told the Eagle. “We need the skills to be able to address more and more water coming into our lives.”
Slevin strongly supported the “plus-pools” investment, because they’ll allow for more pools and a connection to the natural environment.
“Maybe Jamaica Bay would be a site for a plus pool,” she said.
In Queens, particularly in South Queens, where even though access to water is available via Jamaica Bay and the Atlantic, educational programs have lacked.
“Today’s funding announcement is a major step forward in expanding swim safety for all of NYC,” said Queens Councilmember Selvena Brooks-Powers. “My district knows better than most the need for increased safety measures through more lifeguards, free swim programs, and improved swimming infrastructure.”
Governor Kathy Hochul announced the New York SWIMS plan alongside Mayor Eric Adams in Manhattan on Friday. The plan looks to expand New Yorker’s access to water and water safety. Photo by Don Pollard/Office of Governor Hochul
In 2023, Brooks-Powers – whose district includes the east end of the Rockaway Beach shorelines – sponsored legislation in the Council to gather data on drownings and identify new locations for pools, namely in under-resourced communities.
“Ultimately, the goal of this is to help us make our shorelines safer for New Yorkers and for visitors,” Brooks-Powers told the Eagle over the summer. “We're in a period right now where there is a lot of attention to a very important issue that has been around for many, many years.”
Just outside of the councilmember’s district in Southeast Queens, the city recently added $55 million to a previously allocated $92 million to construct a new pool and renovate the existing one at Roy Wilkins Park in St. Albans.
"After decades of systemic disinvestment, the children and families of Southeast Queens deserve nothing less than state-of-the-art community facilities, and that is exactly what we are proudly delivering, both with this new, modern pool and this historic community center in Roy Wilkins Park,” said Queens Borough President Donovan Richards in a statement after the announcement of the funding. “This space will be more than just a place where our kids can learn to swim and our residents. Roy Wilkins Park has long been a much-needed recreational haven for Southeast Queens.”
However, the pool at Roy Wilkins is one of only a small handful of public swimming areas in a borough of nearly 2.5 million residents.
On top of the existing pool at Roy Wilkins Recreation Center, there is also Flushing Meadows Corona Park Aquatics Center, which is the only other indoor public pool. Outdoor pools include Fisher Pool in Elmhurst, Fort Totten Pool in Whitestone, Astoria Pool, Liberty Pool in Jamaica, Marie Curie Park Pool in Bayside, PS 186 Playground Pool in Glen Oaks and Windmuller Pool in Woodside.
“We need more swimming pools, we need our natural resources,” Slevin said.
Queens electeds and advocates have also looked toward the shores, namely the seven miles of beach off the Rockaways, which have had historical issues with drownings spanning decades.
Assemblymember Stacey Pheffer Amato got her bill signed into law last year which created a Commission to Prevent Childhood Drownings in New York State.
Northwest of Brooks-Powers and Pheffer Amato, State Senator Jessica Ramos also proposed a bill last year which would cover transportation for public school students to their closest public pool, a bill she hoped the governor would consider in the next budget.
“I look forward to diving in on this with the Governor this budget cycle,” the senator said in a tweet.
However, despite enthusiasm from the mayor on Friday, the mayor’s budget cuts at the end of 2023 resulted in the end of swimming programs provided by the Parks Department.
On Friday, the mayor said that with the governor’s support, the effects of his budget cuts will be reversed.
“We are going to do it, I got a good governor, she is excited, she is willing to help us,” he said. “This is something I have been doing since my days as borough president. We have had a system that did not have accessibility to swimming to our entire city….All of us have to be a part of this.”
In her comment to the Eagle, Brooks-Powers had hopes that those budget slashes could be restored.
“I urge the mayor to reconsider budget cuts in these critical areas,” she said.
