McCarren Pool Park: How to Spend That $50 Mil?
Before McCarren Pool was landmarked last month, the Parks Department was already trying to take the pulse of Brooklynites to figure out what kind of offerings to prioritize in the impending makeover. Ideas that came out of the first design charrette back in June included creating multiple smaller pools, a space for outdoor concerts and…
Before McCarren Pool was landmarked last month, the Parks Department was already trying to take the pulse of Brooklynites to figure out what kind of offerings to prioritize in the impending makeover. Ideas that came out of the first design charrette back in June included creating multiple smaller pools, a space for outdoor concerts and a spot for skaters to do their thing. The dialog with the public is a worthwhile process, to be sure, given that the city is planning on dropping $50 million on the renovation. A group called the Open Space Alliance of North Brooklyn (which has been working with both the Parks Department and Community Board 1) has been trying to bring as many views to the table as possible by running a survey on the issue. The are only three aspects to the future plan that are now a given: (1) the bathhouse and entry arch must be preserved; (2) there must be a pool; (3) there must be a year-round recreation center. To date, about 500 people have responded. Hopefully readers who live in the area will take a couple of minutes to give their feedback. Feel free to opine below as well.
LPC Gives McCarren Pool a Big Thumbs-Up [Brownstoner]
W’burg Landmarking Update: Domino and McCarren [Brownstoner]
McCarren Brainstorming, 70 Years Ago and Today [Brownstoner]
Photo by Endira Udal
I say build a monorail.
The Met Pool on Bedford and Metropolitan is a public pool. Like all NYC Public Pools, it costs about $75/year to use (and that fee gets you into all NYC Recreation Facilities). I think one can presume that no matter what happens at McCarren, there will be a similar fee structure. But hey, that’s better than the current $50/concert!
My mistake BrooklynZoo, that’s the pool I was referring to.
Anyhow, it seems like two or more pools with a specific focus – children, adults etc. – would leave more than enough space to accommodate a skate area in conjunction with a stage and an area for seating / standing room or whatever else would be required. Personally I would rarely use a public pool, however I’m sure there are plenty of others who would.
I’m embarrassed to ask – but where is Williamsburg’s public pool? There’s that Rec Center on Metropolitan, but it’s not free.
Make a WAVE POOL like the have at amusement parks… there could be a section for surfing!
… and then put a floor overtop of the water for concerts
Williamsburg already has a public pool, but given the vastness of the McCarren Pool site, there appears to be little to no reason some conglomeration of all the proposals couldn’t be reached.
I skate, so I’d like to see at least a portion of the space used to finally provide a place for NYC skaters to avoid the Grand Canyon sized sidewalk cracks that are one of Brooklyn’s hallmarks. Given that skating has lost most of its lawlessness at this stage I really think a skatepark would serve to bring people together in our neighborhood, and the Warped tour wouldn’t be far behind if an effort were made to also include a venue. NYC has a chance here to catch up to California with a world-class space it could use to host all manner of “alternative sports” (I cringe) events, and if the space is designed modularly enough – which is good for skating anyway – it wouldn’t need to be limited to just those. Given all the money in that segment of the sports world these days, they’d be remiss not to at least consider it. There’d probably be enough room left to get that pool in, although personally, I find public pools generally disgusting.
We need a skatepark, however modest.
Throw up some giant sound barriers and keep having concerts there…