Flushing's drowning pool

THE CITY 

 A heralded Queens public pool central to New York City’s failed 2012 Olympic bid has been shuttered since before the pandemic — while as many as a dozen workers show up daily without swimmers to serve.

It’s one of six public indoor pools closed for maintenance even after the six others run by the city reopened last month following an 18-month COVID-spurred shutdown.

The Flushing Meadows Corona Park Aquatic Center was shuttered Jan. 13, 2020, for what the Department of Parks and Recreation described as “emergency repairs” after the roof started shedding concrete.

At the time, the department said in a press release, “the pool will be closed to the public for at least six weeks,” with “extensive ceiling netting” to be installed over the pool and a neighboring ice rink.

The pool’s public entrance on the eastern edge of the park is now padlocked, with handwritten signs reading “Pool is closed, sorry” pasted on the front doors.

That netting is now permanently in place over the drained 50-meter pool, according to workers at the facility, which first opened its doors in 2008. Chunks of concrete falling from the ceiling are to blame, the Parks Department says.

Conditions are so far-gone that Parks says it is developing plans to reconstruct the roof.