Red Hook Pool Fails to Surface, Again

The nearly-Olympic-sized Red Hook Pool in Brooklyn can hold more than 4,400 people, but only one would-be bather turned out for a meeting Thursday night where Parks officials explained why the neighborhood’s summer lifeline has failed to open on time. 

“This is not something you can foresee — this building is 90 years old, and I’m 90 years old; I have less problems with my health,” said Martin Maher, the Parks Department’s Brooklyn borough commissioner (who’s actually in his 60s).

It’s the second year in a row that the Red Hook pool has failed to open at the start of the summer season. The delayed opening put a damper on the Parks Department’s celebration of the 90th anniversary of 11 public pools that all opened in the summer of 1936 with funding from the federal Works Progress Administration. 

Several other pools in the city have not opened yet, including Haffen Park in The Bronx and Tony Dapolito in Manhattan, which are undergoing reconstruction. 

The city’s Olympic-sized pools are beloved, but it’s been a challenge to maintain the older pools. Last year, a pipe in the Red Hook pool system burst when the department began the water-filling process, shutting it down until mid-August and prompting an urgent letter from then-Comptroller Brad Lander to then-Parks commissioner Iris Rodriguez-Rosa. 

This time, the Parks Department discovered flooding in the pool’s filters two days before its planned opening to the public on June 27th.

“We needed to get four motors; we needed to get some associated hardware to put them in,” said Maher, adding that the department has since received the expedited parts and that repairs are in progress. 

The pool is expected to reopen by the end of July, or sooner. Despite the current closure, the pool will continue to be a Department of Education site for free lunches, available to New Yorkers under 18.

Eighteen-year-old Prospect Heights resident Winslow Brooke, who was with friends outside the center, said he made plans to celebrate graduating from high school at the pool, especially during last week’s citywide heat wave.

“I use it to cool off, hang out with friends, and keep those connections early on through summer, so it was real disappointing, especially during those really hot days,” he said.

At Thursday’s meeting at Red Hook Recreation Center, city officials, elected officials, their staffers, and journalists outnumbered community residents: Total, uno.

Emmitt Mendoza-Gaspar, the chief of staff to state Assemblymember Marcela Mitaynes, said that they’d received “more than 40 to 50” inquiries from constituents about the pool’s closure.

“Most of these people are probably people who reached out to us last year as well,” he said.

Though the Parks Department has “sufficient staff” to maintain all of its pools, Maher said workers typically don’t test the pools, which often take three to four days to fill, before opening day.

When asked about preventative steps the department could have taken to get ahead of any issues, Maher said that inspections are routinely carried out before and after pool season, but that the building’s outdated infrastructure has posed roadblocks.

Big Renovation Coming

A $122 million renovation slated to begin in 2028 promises to revamp the recreation center and its pool.

Some, however, disagreed with the department’s maintenance procedures. 

“The incident itself I don’t think was preventable, but we could have foreseen this earlier if processes existed,” said Mendoza-Gaspar, who believes the department can test the pools before opening day. 

“Who knows what similar issues might come up next year because that’s 2027.”

In the meantime, the city encourages Red Hook residents to turn to alternatives, including the recreation center’s spray shower, active from 11 am to 7 pm daily, located near the gates at Lorraine and Henry Streets, or the Douglass & Degraw Pool on Degraw and Nevins Streets; or Sunset Pool on 41st Street and 7th Avenue. 

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