First-Ever +POOL to Open in New York City This Summer, with Plans to Expand Swimming Access across the State
New York Governor Hochul has announced a partnership with the nonprofit Friends of + POOL to open the first urban river-sourced swimming facility in the United States. Utilizing + POOL’s design and technology, the 2,000-square-foot plus-shaped swimming pool is set to open in New York City’s East River in the summer of 2024. In 2010, four young designers, Archie Lee Coates IV, Dong-Ping Wong, Jeffrey Franklin, and Oana Stanescu, established + POOL with the goal of providing New Yorkers with access to free and safe river swimming. Now the state promised to invest $16 million to pilot and scale the system, hoping to expand it across the state of New York.
The plus-shaped floating pool is designed to filter water through its walls without any chemicals or additives, having the capacity to clean over 1,000,000 gallons of water a day. This new type of filtration system brings raw river water to safe microbiological standards for swimming, as verified by the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s (US EPA) water quality modeling software. The nonprofit Friends of + POOL has patented the design and is advocating for city and state agencies to encourage safe river swimming and establish regulations for public access. This summer, the public demonstration will offer conclusive data to obtain permits and authorize the final stages of the pool’s installation.
New York’s waterways are currently out of bounds from those who could benefit most from them. “+ POOL reclaims New York’s natural resources by opening our waters. It restores the utility of our waterways. It gives everyone the ability to enjoy the water. It enables people to care for and coexist with nature. – Friends of + POOL Managing Director, Kara Meyer.
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Despite being some of the most appreciated public facilities in New York over the past century, public pools have become scarce. However, they have the ability to provide relief from increased instances of extreme heat, in addition to enabling a sense of community and reconnecting people with their surrounding natural environment. In the words of Friends of + POOL Board Chair, George Fontas, “ +POOL will spur new approaches to how we experience and interact with our waterways, promote economic activity, and lead to healthier New Yorkers.”
Municipal swimming pools were extraordinarily popular during the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. Cities and towns across the country opened thousands of new pools that served tens of millions of Americans. These pools became emblems of a new, distinctly modern version of the good life that valued leisure, pleasure, and beauty. By 1933, swimming had become as popular as going to the movies. Pools were, in short, an integral part of the kind of life Americans wanted to live. – Jeff Wiltse, author of Contested Waters.
Over the last few decades, public pools have become a somewhat overlooked aspect of urban life, despite their advantages of offering a different type of social experience and fostering connections with both people and nature. Across the world, several other initiatives strive to revive this facility Among them, the city of Paris has created a tradition of transforming the River Seine into a makeshift beach during the hot summer months, complete with floating pools along the Basin de la Villette. Waterfront pools are also an emerging typology in cities such as Matosinhos in Portugal, Copenhagen and Aarhus in Denmark, and Berlin, Germany.
