The Philadelphia Department of Parks and Recreation posted specific pool opening dates yesterday. Thirteen days before the pools are set to start opening. With pool locations. (Map here.) This is a serious culture shift. This is amazing.

(A word to the wise: See the day the pool you’re interested in is slated to open? Make it the following day in your head and you’re less likely to show up to a half-filled pool behind a locked gate. Which isn’t what’s supposed to happen, or what usually does happen, but it can happen, and is that really how you want your first swim attempt of the summer to go?  Use that extra day to learn more about the people and infrastructure that make the pools possible and you’ll enjoy swimming in them even more, I promise.)

Meanwhile, I believe I heard at City Council the other day that not only is the sugary drinks tax (which would make it possible to fix up rec centers, among other community needs) moving out of committee (to a final vote next Thursday), but that Council President Darrell Clarke recommended that some of the revenue from it go to Parks and Rec staffing as well. I can’t find written confirmation of this anywhere, but here’s hoping.

And finally, the brilliant Pop-Up Pool Project will be brightening up pool time at four new locations this year, in addition to repeating last year’s wonderfulness in Francisville. This year’s lucky spots:

• In Center City (at 26th and South): My first pool, my love, the place where this website was born. Already called “the Taj Mahal” and “the Country Club” by people who work at other City pools, O’Connor Pool + Pop-Up Pools is going to give private swim clubs a serious run for their money. Which I suspect is the point.
• In West Philly (at 44th and Haverford): Lee Cultural Center is the true Philly public pool lover’s pool. When I begged Ms. Thelma, who trained me to be a lifeguard, to name a favorite pool other than her own, she conceded Lee. Head lifeguard Boston Berry is a legend – he trained the people who now train people, from beginner’s strokes up through lifesaving.
• In the lower Northeast, near Olney (at Rising Sun and Comly): This is not Lawncrest‘s first shot at swagger. Will the intricate walk-through sculpture that lightning turned into a permanent hazard zone get revived for the Pop-Up? I am excited to see. And at any rate, the pool’s big.
• In Mount Airy (at Boyer and Pleasant): Pleasant Playground lives up to its name. It’s a family spot. In terms of the Pop-Up locations, it’s probably the smallest, with the least feel of being tucked away. Which makes it representative of many of our less lauded, but equally vital, Philly public pools.
• And back in lower North Philadelphia (at 18th and Francis): The poor man’s infinity pool, Francisville will Pop-Up again.

It’s shaping up to be a wonderful summer.

Pool Season starts later this month, but Wondering About the Pools Season has been going strong for a few weeks now. The latter revolves around two core questions:

When do the pools open?

Philly public pools open after Philly public schools close. This year, the last day of school is Thursday, June 22nd. So I would have said that swimming should be possible come Friday June 23rd… but this year the Department of Parks and Recreation has actually posted opening info in the most accessible place I’ve ever seen them do so (nice work!!!!) and says the pools will open on a staggered schedule from June 22^nd-July 1^st.

Four indoor pools stay open year-round, but the start of the season involves waking all 70 of the others from their winter slumber: cleaning them, repairing them, filling them with water. This is no small task and is why the pools don’t all open the same day. For a sense of what this year’s opening schedule might look like, check out how they rolled out in 2015 and 2014.

For the full listing and map of pools, click here.

For a beginner’s guide to using them once they open, see this.

Why don’t the pools open sooner?

I have no inside information on this question, which – trust me – I’m asking the universe daily this time of year. That said, I suspect the answer involves:

• That the pools cost a fair bit of money to operate.
• That we’ve got a shortage of lifeguards as it is. (If you know people who’d make good ones, send them here!)
• That it’d involve shifting established patterns of how things are done.
• That pool season is already a huge lift for (and not always well loved by) the people charged with making it happen.
• And that there’s not always enough consistent demand.

There is a lot more that could be said about all of the above. For now, though, I’ll just note that while some of these factors are more complex than others, they all have their roots in the heartbreaking levels of under-funding that have plagued our recreation infrastructure for years. As would answers to other frequently asked questions like: “Why are the pools not open longer hours?” and infinite variations on “Why are the pools not better maintained?”

If our pools – and the larger recreation, parks and library system that they are part of – are important to you (and, I suspect if you are reading this, they are), please take five minutes today to let our City Councilpeople know. For the first time in recent memory, a Philadelphia mayor is proposing investing in our rec centers! The mechanism would be a 3 cent per ounce tax on soda and other sugary drinks, which would bring in $95 million/year for Pre-K, Community Schools, and rebuilding our parks, rec centers and libraries. This proposal has garnered fierce, multi-multi-multi-million-dollar opposition from the beverage industry (and various counter-proposals, all of which would bring in less of the needed funds). For more info on all of this, check out Philadelphians for a Fair Future.

Over the next week and a half – starting with a vote this coming Wednesday, June 8^th – the 17 members of City Council will decide what the future of our parks and pools will look like. They are getting tons of visits, calls and postcards sponsored by the beverage industry. We need to make sure they also hear from those of us who want to see the maximum amount of new revenue generated to rebuild our glorious, but crumbling, recreation infrastructure.

Here is their contact info:

Pool season is a week longer this year! I don’t know why this is, but I suspect that it’s more likely to happen again in future years if we take advantage of it now.

These nine pools (listed in rough order of how much I love them) will be open for splashing, floating, lolling, swimming, and other water-based wonderfulness through the end of the day next Thursday, August 27th (all other pools are closed or closing today):

Kelly (in Fairmount Park, next to the Please Touch Museum): The biggest, not to mention the only pool in the system with grass, inside the pool deck, that you may lie on. Weekend hours: Lap swimming 12-4:45pm; open swim Sat 12-4:45pm; family swim Sun 12-4:45pm. Weekday hours: Lap swimming 11am-6:45pm; open swim 1-4pm; adult swim Mon, Wed, Fri 5-6:45pm; family swim Tue, Thu 5-6:45pm.

Mander (on the edge of East Fairmount Park, at 33rd and Diamond): I was in lifeguard training with longtime guard Reina and would trust any member of my family’s life in her hands. She may have gone back to school at this point, but her mother, head lifeguard Nancy, runs a tight ship as well — and leads water aerobics during adult swim.
Vare (at 26th and Morris in South Philly): If you love to swim and live South, it’s wise to familiarize yourself with Vare, which is usually the area’s first pool to open and last to close. Its spirit harkens back to the early days of public pools, when working-class boys turned reformers’ baths into joyful, raucous playgrounds.

Max Myers (at Hellerman and Horrocks, just north of the Boulevard off Bustleton in the Northeast): Representing the opposite end of the rules spectrum from Vare. As long as you expect to shuttle back outside of the pool gate every 45 minutes, this large, T-shaped pool is a lovely place to spend a day — especially if you snag some deck space next to the veggie garden.

Waterloo (at Cumberland and Waterloo in Kensington): A true neighborhood pool. Small and hemmed in, but somehow here that feels cozy rather than cramped. Ask the staff about their rec leader, Anthony Washington, if you want to inspire yourself to be a better person.

Awbury (at Ardleigh and Haynes, by the Awbury Arboretum in Germantown): It’s cooler up here in the trees, and there are benches to sit on. I’ve had more experiences arriving at this pool to find it closed than I wish to remember, so if you’re coming from another part of the city, maybe call first.

Feltonville (off Wyoming between A and B, a few blocks south of the Boulevard): I’m excited this pool will be open, as I haven’t swum here since 2013 and am looking forward to making it back. Feltonville (which rumor has it is an especially well-run rec center) is generally the pool with the longest season up this way.

Vogt (at Unruh and Cottage, in the Tacony section of the Northeast): Another large, T-shaped pool in the Northeast. Vogt’s schedule has something for everyone. And it’s sort of charming how the staff climb through a hole in the rec center wall to get out to the pool.

Christy (at 56th and Christian in West Philly): Extremely easy to find, right there on the corner. Where Mayor Nutter swam as a kid.

So this is the time of year that I could update this site and people would actually read it. But who wants to be futzing around on a computer when you could be in the water?

I do take pictures of the pools I go to, if you’d like to check them out on Instagram. (I try to include info on special hours, features and events there too.) And if you really, really like looking at Philly pool pictures (I’m with you!), the Pop-Up Pool Project and #phillypooltour15 are also very exciting.

Here’s to enjoying pool season while we have the chance. And here’s a link to Parks and Rec’s pool listing and map if you need it.

From: West Philadelphia

Age: 25 (when interviewed in 2014)

First pool experience: Cobbs Creek, at 12

Work with the pools: As a lifeguard at James Finnegan since 2013

“My uncle taught me how to swim, and ever since it’s one of my passions. I love the pool. I love swimming. I think everybody should learn how to swim. That’s what we do at our pool. We try to get all the kids, we try to get the adults, we try to get everybody interactive with swimming, learning how to swim. Because a lot of people don’t know how to swim in the city, in the inner city. So it’s good to learn how to swim.

I’m in the pool every day. Some people wouldn’t know that swimming is one of my passions. I don’t talk about it a lot. Growing up, I played football; I ran track. A lot of people don’t know that I love swimming.

I tell everybody, “Get the fear out you.” A lot of people that we have swim lessons with, they say, “I’m scared!” You know. I just try to get the fear out of them. That’s the biggest thing with my swim lessons. Get the fear out. I’m here to teach you, as much as possible.

When I heard a couple years back that the mayor wanted to shut the pools down, I disliked that. I was like, wow. Me growing up – when I was growing up, that was our fun in the summertime, swimming. I want the pools to open. I wish they opened all year-round. (We have some – but there’s only a few.) I like the fact that all the public pools are open. Everybody should go out and at least get a swim in the summertime.”

Southwest Philly’s first public pool — built at 63rd and Woodland in 1915 — has been gone a long time.

Of all City residents these days, Southwest Philadelphians have the least access to recreational facilities. In 2010, only 28.7% of Southwest Philly adults reported regular use of neighborhood rec sites (including public pools), as opposed to 41.8% citywide and 58.9% in some parts of the Northwest (the area with the most access).

Is it unrelated that nearly 57% of adults in the Southwest have high blood pressure (the highest of any neighborhood)? INTO THE POOL, PEOPLE!!

If only it was that easy. Southwest Philly also has a poverty rate of 36%. And that’s the official poverty rate ($24,250 for a family of four). How many families are living on just a little more?

In this context, Southwest’s three free swim spots could not be more essential. Rollicking Kingsessing. Family-friendly Myers. Far, far away Finnegan.

Here’s the Department of Parks and Recreation’s listing. (They include Christy at 56th and Christian — I’ll cover that along with West Philly pools.)

Here’s a map from PlanPhilly.

—

Source for the unattributed stats above: Philadelphia Department of Public Health Community Health Assessment 2014.

The pools start closing a week from today. They will all be closed by the following Friday. Now is the time to go swimming!