NYC Parks didn't hire enough lifeguards this summer

 NY Post

A staffing shortage is causing some Rockaway Beach lifeguards to fly solo, creating a potentially dangerous situation, guards told The Post.

Lifeguards at the city beach said the long hours on the stand alone compromise safety as they become fatigued or have to deal with multiple rescues. Some staged a protest on Friday.

“If you were out in the water drowning, four of us (have) a lot better chance of seeing you than if I’m by myself on that chair. Especially on a day like today: foggy, muggy,” one lifeguard in his 10th year said Saturday.

Others said they were not even allowed to take bathroom breaks, a distraction that made it harder to focus on swimmers. They said supervisors were not sympathetic.

“All they do when we try to explain to them that we need help and we need the manpower is just, like, ‘Well, you get paid for eight hours.’ ” one guard said.

The Parks Department is missing one-third of its lifeguards which also forced the cancellation of swimming lessons, water exercise classes and swim teams as pools opened for the season Saturday.

The department said it “expected” to have 950 lifeguards ready to go as 49 outdoor pools welcomed swimmers. Beaches already opened May 29.

City says mosquitoes won't breed at Astoria Pool

From NBC:

Scan Astoria Park with your eyes and it is hard to miss the high dive pool. The towering diving platforms have been closed to the public for years, but the pool beneath never stopped capturing rainwater.

On a recent Thursday, you could seeas a faded basketball floating in the cloudy water, and knee-high weeds growing out of the pool.

"It’s definitely a mosquito breeding ground,” said neighbor Ian Eastwick, as he walked by the abandoned pool. "That’s where they hang out. That’s where they come from."

"I think they need to clean it up, man," added Les Fernandez, as he finished his workout in the park. "This is a popular park."

In April, Mayor de Blasio announced a $21 million campaign to fight Zika. The strategy includes public service announcements, travel advisories and warnings to get rid of stagnant water that might be collecting in old tires, birdbaths and pools.

Despite those warnings, the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation suggested the Astoria Park high dive pool does not represent a mosquito risk.

"The diving pool is maintained regularly by NYC Parks staff, including weeding, removing debris, and spraying for insects," Meghan Lalor, a Parks spokeswoman, wrote in an email to the I-Team.

"However, due to the nature of the deep pool, this work is difficult and requires specialized equipment."

Spa Castle closes

From NY1:

The city Health Department ordered Spa Castle in College Point to close all of its pools because it was not following safety standards.

The spa's owners then decided to shut the entire facility down.

It comes after a 6-year-old girl was found unconscious in one of the spa's pools on February 19.

Public pools have a bunch of health violations

From NBC:

Soaring temperatures and oppressive humidity sent New Yorkers in droves to the nearest swimming pool this week, but with the flood of water-seekers, some may wonder how city pools measure up in terms of safety and sanitation.

The I-Team reviewed records of pool inspections and violations for all New York City Parks and Recreation Pools for 2013 and 2014. The investigation showed dozens of public health violations are issued each year for problems like lack of supervisory staff, overcrowding and, in some cases, failure to operate filtration and disinfection equipment continuously.

For example, the Astoria Pool in Queens had 10 violations in recent years. Five of the violations were considered "critical," including failing to provide a valid pool operator certificate, having inadequate water test kits and improperly operating the flow meter.

One violation involving chlorine levels during use of the pool was listed as a public health hazard.

Problems at both Spa Castles

From DNA Info:

A city health inspection of Spa Castle conducted after an elderly man died at the facility in December found the popular bathhouse dirty and unsafe.

Several pools at the 131-10 11th Ave. location lacked proper disinfectant, while too many bathers — eight, instead of five — crowded another pool. In addition, Spa Castle failed to notify the Health Department within 24 hours of 84-year-old Hock Ma's death on Dec. 28, violating city regulations.

Ma passed away in one of the spa’s pools of natural causes, the Medical Examiner ruled, and a bather, not staff, discovered his body.

The fact that Ma's demise went unnoticed by staffers prompted Queens state Sen. Tony Avella to ask Mayor Bill de Blasio to establish an interagency city task force that could better track ongoing violations of bathhouses and spas.

"There was no supervision. If they had the proper supervision, maybe he might have been saved," Avella said. "The fact that he had to be found by another client of the spa is disgraceful."

Health Department records show that during 2013 and 2014, Spa Castle's Queens location racked up 45 violations — including failure to provide an updated safety plan, lack of life-saving equipment and, like Avella cautions, not having an adequate amount of support staff.

And their Manhattan location was shut down:

Problems once again at public pools

From A Walk in the Park:

Police and Park Enforcement Patrol officers working in and around the city pools not only had to battle stiffing temperatures during the heat wave last week but also unruly patrons.

The NYPD arrested at least 13 people in Parks Department pool related incidents NYC Park Advocates has learned.

The charges ranged from Inciting A Riot, Resisting Arrest, Gang Assault, Robbery, Assault, Criminal Possession of A Weapon.

Several pools were temporarily closed to quell the violence and more than a dozen lockers were robbed.

Nice Astoria Pool report here. But my favorite is this one:

Police arrested a Washington Heights woman who created quite a disturbance when she refused to go quietly after putting on a show for pool patrons. According to law enforcement sources, Raiz Nunez, 21, was wearing a pink thong bathing suit with white sandals and dancing, shaking her behind while holding on to a railing in the deep end treating it like a stripper pole. The audience chanted as she gyrated and encouraged adults, and then children to smack her behind which some obliged.

The incident prompted some patrons with children to leave and caused a larger crowd to gather.

"She thought she was on the pole, and this would get her some attention and it did," said an officer at the scene.

She was asked to leave. Things escalated while she was being escorted out by police and PEP officers attempting to remove her from the premises.

"She was saying that she looks good and 'you are all just jealous that's why you're doing this.' She looked liked SpongeBob SquarePants," said an officer referring to the woman's apparent non hour-glass figure.

So for all those people who you hear saying, "I wish there was a free public pool in my neighborhood!"

Trust me, you really don't want one.

Developer thinks water-filled dumpsters improve LIC

From the NY Times:

ON a recent afternoon the view across Court Square, in eastern Long Island City, Queens, took in an auto body shop and parking lots, and aging factories beyond. The Citicorp Building and other office towers cast shadows across streets. Places to shop were nonexistent.

That view is about to change. The Rockrose Development Corporation has started construction on a 42-story rental tower with 709 apartments that is expected to be among the largest residential developments in the area — and one of the tallest buildings in the borough — when completed in 2013.

The apartments in the tower, which will be called Linc LIC, at 43-10 Crescent Street, will range from 450-square-foot studios to 1,400-square-foot three-bedrooms. They will have parquet floors and “Rockrose standard” flecked granite counters, and in many cases, washers and dryers, said Justin Elghanayan, a principal of Rockrose, which is led by his father, Henry.

The rents will be about 25 percent below those for comparable apartments in Manhattan, brokers say. They average $1,750 a month, for studios, and $4,150 a month for three-bedrooms, or about $38 per square foot.

“I think it’s about to pop,” Justin Elghanayan said of the Court Square area, as he gave a tour of the work site. Indeed, a bustling after-work social scene will be critical to attracting the younger renters whom Rockrose covets, said Mr. Elghanayan, who for similar reasons staged a sort of multiweekend pool party on a lot near his new building last summer. Called the Palms, the party featured three Dumpsters filled with water to splash around in, alongside beach chairs, and beer. “That’s the kind of energy neighborhoods need,” he said.

Mental note: LIC needs more noise and dumbasses serving liquor without a valid license...

Parks to close Fort Totten pool

From the Times Ledger:

City Councilman Dan Halloran (R-Whitestone) said he was shocked to find out recently that the city Parks Department is planning to close down Fort Totten’s swimming pool as part of its 2011 fiscal year budget.

The agency said during a budgetary hearing last week that the fort’s pool would be one of four in the city to be shuttered. The councilman had been told several weeks ago that funding was in place for the site.

“I met with Parks weeks ago and there was no indication this was happening,” Halloran said. “This completely blindsided me. It’s the only open-air pool in eastern Queens.”

The pool had undergone upgrades, including resealing and landscaping, during the past two fiscal budget cycles. But it could close down as early as July 1 when the Parks Department’s new fiscal year begins, Halloran said.

“We just spent half a million dollars refurbishing this thing, so this is ludicrous,” he said. “It’s disingenuous they are doing this at the 11th hour. It was rehabilitated and allotted a whole lot of money.”

In a statement, Parks announced its plan to close the pool as well as shorten the swimming season for its other city pools by two weeks. The agency said the move would save the city $1.4 million.

Robert Moses and the Astoria Pool

From the Daily News:

Master builder Robert Moses was in high gear in 1936, effortlessly spending truckloads of federal money as fast as he could, not only finishing up the enormous Triborough Bridge project but also installing splendid new public swimming pools all over town for the pleasure of the good people of New York - nearly a dozen of them, one a week all summer long. Most splendid of them all was the Astoria Pool, on the Queens side of the big bridge, right down in its very shadow. Characteristically Mosesean, the pool was said to be the nation's largest - 330 feet long, 165 feet wide, its 1.8 million gallons of water handily accommodating more than 3,000 bathers - and it was stunningly futuristic, boasting of all things underwater lighting, unheard of at the time. Well, it happened to cost nearly $4 million, in 1936 dollars, but then President Franklin Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration had bucks to burn. Opening day was Saturday the Fourth of July, just a week ahead of the overhead Triborough, and if it was the Master Builder's lot not to be universally loved all his long life, on this particular occasion at least he won the hearts of many thousands of New Yorkers, since, amid the scorchingest summer in years, he ordered the Astoria and the other new pools not to close till midnight.

Thursday wackiness at Flushing Meadows

From Gothamist:

It looks like the Queens Museum of Art and the Brooklyn Museum are battling it out... on Twitter! It's impossible to say who is winning this publicity stunt war, but the Queens folk had a pretty good burn, posting the above pic and saying they found the Brooklyn Museum on their panorama.

Of course, the real battle will go down this Thursday, when artist Duke Riley gives the city's art dignitaries "baguette swords and watermelon cannon balls" in order to fight it out in "a flooded World's Fair-era-reflecting pool in Flushing Meadows Corona Park." The artist has constructed vessels and a fitting atmosphere in which to stage a gladiator-style battle between the museums (the Queens Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Bronx Museum of the Arts, and El Museo del Barrio are all involved).

Too many people, not enough pools

The city had planned to rehab this abandoned pool at the 59th Street Rec Center in Manhattan. Nearly $5 million had been raised by 2003, with more than half coming from a high-rise developer. The center’s just closed for a $12 million face-lift, but when it reopens next year this pool will be gone, city officials said. Photo: PATRICK ARDEN/METRO

Lack of pools leaves many dry and angry

NYC ranks dead last among major cities in public spots to take a dip

On a steamy summer day, New Yorkers flock to the city’s 54 outdoor pools, but New York ranks dead last in pools per capita among the nation’s largest cities, according to the watchdog group NYC Park Advocates.

A new $66.3 million recreation center in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park boasted the first indoor pools in 40 years, but “sometimes it’s so crowded they turn people away,” complained Irina Gomez, who waited to get in on Saturday.

The Flushing Meadows-Corona Park Aquatic Center warns members — who’ve already paid $75 to join — that they’ll have to claim a wristband “for guaranteed admittance” a full hour before the start of an open swim. On Saturday, one of the three pools had been rented to a private swim club.

The center is operated by USA Pools, which collects a fee from the city and returns 25 percent of its income from rentals, classes and merchandise sales.

Eight miles southwest in the Lower East Side is the “Whitehouse,” an abandoned recreation center in the midst of the La Guardia Houses. Last week, local Councilman Alan Gerson conducted a tour of the center for city officials. Residents hope to get their pool back.

“It was fine when they closed it in the 1970s,” said Michael Steele, 53, “but now it’s a mess.”

Bloomie misses Jacko and can swim!

From the NY Post:

"I will always be listening to his music," the mayor declared today before jumping into a Harlem pool, an annual ritual that opens the Parks Department's swim season.

From WCBS880:

9-year-old Celia Rodriguez was surprised the mayor was such a good swimmer.

Rodriguez said, "Yes. He can float on top."

Wait, I found more...

From WNYC:

Peace Trunks, Check. Loafers, Check.