With New York City experiencing its first heat wave of the summer, Greenwich Village’s Tony Dapolito Pool has never looked so dry.
While no city pools will open their gates until June 27, the Village’s beloved pool is not coming back this summer at all — the fifth season in a row that it’s been closed for renovations.
The pool’s closure, since 2019, has stemmed from protracted repairs to the adjoining recreation center. What was originally proposed as a straightforward renovation project exposed serious structural issues in the recreation center, requiring the Parks Department to close the entire facility, including both the indoor and outdoor pools.
Since that closure in 2021, neighbors have yet to notice any changes outside, except for an increase in scaffolding and netting to protect pedestrians from debris.
“Certainly a lot of people are aware that it’s been closed for a long time, and there’s been little or no sign of progress for a while,” said Andrew Berman, executive director of Village Preservation. The concern, he said, is the city’s reluctance to decide whether the recreation center and adjoining pool are salvageable.
According to the Parks Department website, construction at the site has officially been paused. A spokesperson said that the recreation center and pool is one of the department’s “highest priorities” that “is under active consideration,” but did not elaborate on its future except to say that the project is being “reevaluated.”
“We are evaluating several scenarios to ensure we make the best investment for the neighborhood, maximizing recreation space in a cost-effective manner,” said the spokesperson.
In the meantime, weeds have sprouted from the bottom of the pool, which stretches underneath an iconic Keith Haring mural. According to reports, the renovation project was initially estimated to cost between $4 and 6 million, but has since skyrocketed to $17 million after the city discovered the serious structural issues.
The Parks Department encouraged local patrons to visit Hamilton Fish pool — 1.5 miles away — at 128 Pitt St., at Houston Street, on the Lower East Side.
The uncertainty over the future of the recreation center has sprawled into the discussion around the city’s development of an all-affordable rental building on city-owned property across the street at 388 Hudson St.
In a February 2023 resolution, Community Board 2 cited the continued closure of the Tony Dapolito recreation center — and the lack of a definite date for reopening — as a reason the neighborhood needs more recreation space on the ground floor of the new building.
A majority of neighbors reported to the city that they thought the new development needs a community space, according to HDP’s visioning report.
Neighbors say that the pool’s proximity to two subway lines made it an important resource for people from all over the city, not just the neighborhood. That — and the massive aquatic Keith Haring mural that splays over the pool for the public to appreciate.
“To me and to many of those of us who live close by, the Keith Haring murals that are on one wall facing the pool are precious beyond words. And really whatever happens needs to give high consideration in preserving them,” said May Ann Arisman, neighbor and member of the St. Luke’s Block Association.
The importance of the recreation center’s namesake Anthony Dapolito is also an important part of the recreation center’s legacy, neighbors say. Dapolito was known as an unofficial mayor of the Village on Manhattan’s Community Board 2, who was known to relentlessly fight for parks and other neighborhood amenities during his tenure.
Neighbors who spoke to amNewYork Metro and The Villager in the park space next to the Recreation Center blamed the city for not maintaining the center until it became “a crumbling disaster.”
“If they cared about the pool, it’d be done by now,” said a lifelong neighbor outside the park who would only agree to be identified by Pauly. “They’re never gonna let ’em mess with Pier 40 or the Little League because the rich white kids play soccer there, but if you come and watch this pool, it’s gonna be mostly brown kids here that take the subway to get here.”
