Mt Adams Pool

Moms of Mt Adams have started a fundraising effort to fully fund the Mt Adams pool. On March 2nd, along with many other communities, they learned that their pool was not going to open this year. They are investigating options such as self-operating the pool and leasing it from the City. This pool is a great resource for families in the area, and I hope they can keep it open.

See: www.saveourpool.com

Also, the CRC has started its own donation page for the 19 community pools that are scheduled to not open this year.

Grieving Mother Helps Kids Learn to Swim

I found this story from Toledo heart-wrenching, and relevant to our Cincinnati's continued removal of deep water swimming pools:

...What Butts is doing is breaking a generational cycle of blacks who don't know how to swim, one child at a time. But the challenge is daunting.

Seven out of 10 black children have little or no swimming ability, according to a study released last spring by USA Swimming...Other studies have found that blacks are much more likely to drown than whites, especially children from low-income homes, according to several studies.

...Her hope is to end "a tragic story that continues to repeat itself."

The roots of why so many blacks don't swim can be traced to racial inequalities and economics. For decades during the 20th century, many pools and beaches were segregated, and relatively few were built in black communities.

Even today, cities with shrinking budgets are limiting access by closing public pools.

...Butts has one more thing she'd like to do — learn to swim.

The first time she got in, more than two years ago, it didn't go so well.

Once in the pool, she couldn't bring herself to let go of the wall and the horrible memories. She gave up after a few days.

She decided to give it another shot in April and has since crossed the pool using a kick board.

"It's a great accomplishment for me," she said. "The next step is to let go. Letting go and being able to float, that's what I want to do."

Week Off and Washington Park

In an attempt to get some work done (and to enjoy my evenings) I am turning my internet browser off for about a week... so no posts for a bit after this.

Before I go, A few thoughts.

First, has the weather been awesome here or what? That early Sunday morning rain storm cleared the humid air out and made for some of the most beautiful weather ever to be had in Cincinnati. Look for the oppressive humidity to return later this week. The only solution for the humidity is... the pool.

We have joined a pool club, and totally enjoy it. We are finding a new summer community to hang with, but are feeling a bit disconnected from our downtown neighbors more already.

Secondly, my wife and I, and a neighbor met with the manager of the Washington Park reconstruction. I guess we were squeaky wheels enough to merit a meeting in which we discussed many of our concerns. We discussed the removal of some trees and we got very specific. My wife especially pushed for the saving of a particular large Linden tree and the Catalpas near the new playground. The guy acted sympathetic, but we didn't get anywhere.

Same with the playground. I wanted to push for more stuff for older kids, but they had already travelled to different cities to see successful playgrounds and had made up their minds on the different play equipment. I still would like some traditional swings, a long rope swing and some ball play stuff like tetherball, basketball or small soccer goals. But none of that is included.

The weirdest aspect of the Park is the elimination of the on-street parking surrounding the park on all 4 sides. What is so strange is that the curb will remain where it is, which means that there will just be 50-60 empty parking spaces surrounding the park. To me, if they are serious on this issue, they should just move the curb out eight feet and create a wide, 20' brick sidewalk all the way around the park, with bollards at the curb. The way it is currently planned, the "no-parking" is just signage, and could be easily changed later.

Generally I like the plan, especially the oval lawn. The overall weakness, I think is that the park features are inward facing, and the perimeter of the park has no seating or assembly areas. I think that this (and the parking issue) are a response to the current problem of people partying while sitting in their cars. I agree that this is sometimes a problem, but I believe it is more a policing problem, not a reason to have empty asphalt surrounding the park.

UPDATE: Picture of said Linden Tree:
 

Pools Again this time Floating

Anyone who is inside reading blogs on this first hot day of summer, must be a real loser. But if for some reason you are not out on a bike or in a pool etc... check out these samples of swimming pools that float in the river. Maybe we could do something like this down at Sawyer Point, near the sand volleyball and the tennis courts and the 1,000 hands playground. It could be the downtowner's public country club!

Brooklyn Bridge Park Barge Pool:
 

Coverage here in the NY Times.

In Zurich. This one is for women only. They have one for men too, that includes an area to swim against the current. Very cool, literally it is freezing:
 

Washington Park Pool May not Reopen

I talked with one of our lifeguards last night and he reported that Washington Park Pool will not be opening this year. Apparently Ziegler is still going to be open, which to me doesn't make much sense as Washington Park is a much better pool, and from what I can tell, no construction is planned in the park this year.

Philadelphia Has 73 Public Pools

Or at least they did last year...

...Having followed the coverage in the Philadelphia media, I have lingering questions about how much of that incident was race and how much was social class. Urban working-class and suburban middle-class children often have quite different styles of play -- as I know from present observation as well as from my Syracuse youth, when I regularly biked to the public pool in Thornden Park. Kids of all races from downtown Syracuse neighborhoods were much rougher and tougher, and for self-preservation you had to stay out of their way! Otherwise, you'd get knocked to the concrete or dunked when they heedlessly jumped off the diving board onto our heads in the crowded pool.

In general, middle-class children today are more closely supervised at pools because the family can afford to have a non-working parent at home -- a luxury that working-class kids rarely have. What happened at the Valley Swim Club, whose safety infrastructure was evidently also overwhelmed by too many visiting kids who were non-swimmers, may have been a clash of classes rather than races. Were the mothers who pulled their kids out of the pool that day really reacting to skin color or what they, accurately or not, perceived to be an overcrowded, dangerous disorder? The incontrovertible offense in all this, which went unmentioned in the national media, was the closure for budgetary reasons by the city of Philadelphia this summer of 27 of its 73 public pools. There is no excuse for that kind of draconian curtailment of basic recreational facilities for working-class families, sweltering in the urban summer heat.

-Camile Paglia speculates about the Philadelphia swim case

I think that there is a big difference between local pools that kids can walk to unsupervised, and those that require a parent to drive the kids to the pool. If the pool requires driving, it almost guarantees that the kids will be better supervised. But that is not always the case. Sunday, we spent the day at Dunham Pool, which is the last CRC pool open this year. I noticed they had signs up saying something like " lifeguards are not babysitters...curb your kids!"

Dunham was packed on its last day. I estimate 3-400 swimmers Sunday.

Swimming in Lake

 

School starts back next week, and another too-short summer with our kids is ended. WE plan on getting as much summer into this last weekend as possible including maybe going to the Hamilton County Fair.

Nothing captures this time of year for a boy like Rick Bragg. Read the first paragraph of Prince of Frogtown here.

Mid Air Jump

 

This is Kinda Like Our Pool

Yeah right. Famous continuous camera scene from the 1964 movie "I am Cuba" that travels from rooftop to pool. The music is not original:

Teens at the Pool

Teenage boys at the pool diving in the deep end and racing across the pool and playing Sharks and Minnows. Somehow I cannot imagine these boys having much fun at a spray fountain:
 

9 Pools May Not Reopen

According to the Enquirer politics blog:

...There are nine pools that are recommended for closing, but these are recommended by the Cincinnati Recreation Commission in keeping with their capital strategy for the development of spraygrounds in the city. In addition the pools slated to be closed have been impacted by deferred maintenance and repairs that the General Fund has not been able to support. Admittedly, there will be a gap between the closing of the pools and the opening of the new spray features. Those pools affected by this decision include: Ziegler, Washington Park, Caldwell, Fairview, South Fairmont, North Fairmont, Inwood, Mount Adams, and Filson. Additionally when you compare the cost to operate and maintain these facilities in relation to the numbers of people that use them it is hard to justify leaving them open...

"...when you compare the cost to operate and maintain these facilities in relation to the numbers of people that use them it is hard to justify leaving them open." Who is saying this? The Mt. Adams Pool is totally packed every time I go there. Really you couldn't comfortably fit more users in that small pool. Most of the days I go to the Washington Park Pool, there are over 50 people there, even though the hours are restricted and the immediate neighborhood is half vacant. The demand is there and even growing.

See, when we opposed the removal of Washington Park pool, people responded: "hey you still have Ziegler, Inwood, Fairview, Mt. Adams nearby". None of those had deepwater or diving boards, but now we see that really all the pools are at best, headed the way of the failed Dyer Sprayground on Freeman Ave... desolate sprinklers over rubberized surface with still limited hours.

We are considering giving up on CRC pools, their non-maintenance, their minimal and inconvenient hours, rules about food and constant threats to close more pools. We may go private next summer so our kids can get some serious swim lessons with a serious swim and diving team. Unfortunately we will be driving a lot more to get there.

Sorry poor kids, next summer you will bake. If you're lucky sometime in the next few years CRC may see fit to set up a sprinkler for you. Maybe.

Clinton Hills Swim Club

Trying to extend the summer as long as possible, we got ourselves invited to a nice pool in North Avondale, Clinton Hills Swim Club. CRC pools have been closed for 3-4 weeks now, but the temperatures have still been in the 90's so it was a nice to find a place to cool off last weekend.

Sunset of Summer:

baby pool:

overall:

sunset:

I like the laid-back vibe at this pool a lot. It is 4 miles from OTR, about a 10-12 minute drive up Vine Street, almost to St. Bernard.

Two other swim clubs: Clifton Meadows and Phillips Pool. We also try to get to Sunlite pool once a year. Hey, what is summer without swimming?

Mt Adams Pool

The Mt Adams Pool is an older, smaller pool, with an integral kiddie end. It is up behind the Playhouse Parking Garage, and is a very quiet pool compared to the other CRC pools because it is mostly adults. Making this a sprayground as is planned, would not suit these users, so a Mt Adam's group is lobbying to save this little oasis. We go there because it is one of the only CRC pools open on Sunday.

Pool Entry:

Pool view from entry:

The cool clean water:

Pool and pool house:

Last Day of Washington Park Pool

August 8, 2008. Was this the last day of this pool for just this year, ..or forever? We don't know.
watermelon toss:
Getting a watermelon fron the 10' deep water:

chasing the watermelon:

St John Tower at OTR Rec Center

St John Tower, at the Over-the-Rhine Recreation Center, also called the HUB center:

When St. John Church was demolished, the tower was salvaged and incorporated into the new community center. The tower was at the rear of the church, along Republic Street. The entry to the church as shown in the old photo was on the north side of Green Street (Northwest corner of Green and Republic).

Here is the Catholic Telegraph post about the closing of this church. Here is their photo, taken 1969:

The building to the right in the photo above, today:

[Where: 12 Green Street, Cincinnati, OH 45202]


View Larger Map

Just to the north of the old tower, is the OTR indoor swimming pool. The CRC proposal is to open up the old bricked-up doors and make this indoor pool a summer pool for use by the OTR swim team. I think it is a plan for failure, as you will not get many kids to go to this hidden indoor pool in the summer:

[Where 1715 Republic Street, Cincinnati, OH 45202]

Mt Adam's Swimmers are Organizing

City-Wide Swim Meet

Last year the City-wide swim meet was held at UC in their indoor pool. It was nice there, because there were many many lanes, and all the competitors could swim at once. This year, the CRC did not get the grant to hold the meet at UC, so they held it at Ryan Pool, which only has 6 lanes, and the heats had to be divided. Still the setting is pretty good, because everyone can sit on the hillside surrounding the pool and watch.

In the CRC Aquatics Plan, Ryan Pool is the only pool not part of a Community Center that will remain open. I'm not sure why that is. The pool sits in a large park, called Ryan Memorial Commons, and is in a nice residential area, across the street from St. Catherine's church and school. I saw councilmember Monzel there cheering his daughter but didn't think it was an appropriate time to lobby him about our pool.

Pool house, and six swimming lanes:

Diving board, deep end, and hillside dotted with teams and families:

Three boys from Otto Armledder Pool at Dunham, with marker tattoos:

Dunham Rubber Duckies:

Ryan Pool Marker:

Playing cards, a swim meet tradition:

I'm proud to report that Washington Park swimmers won two second place ribbons!!!

[Where: 3324 Meyer Place, Cincinnati, OH 45211]

Channel 5 at Washington Park Pool

The 6pm news reported live from the pool right before the swim meet.

Dr. Merrifield is quoted as saying that the pool may not even be removed, at least for a long time. He is wrong, it may be removed this winter.

The 11pm news had a different segment, but I couldn't find it yet.

Some photos of the evening:

Before the meet:

8 and under, diving at the start of the breast stroke:

This girl from Mt. Washington Pool was very fast:

Little backstrokers about to start:

Jumping off the boards after the meet:

Invite to Swim Meet Weds

Everyone is welcome to come see the Washington Park kids swim against other pool teams Weds 6-7pm. People without pool passes can come into the pool area to watch the meet. Come and see the pride of these kids as they compete!

 

Camp Washington Pool

Here are some photos of the Camp Washington Pool. It is located right behind the trees at the Hopple Street exit from South I75, behind the very ugly Deveroes store. Despite being adjacent to the freeway, it is actually a very pleasant pool. It is a 6lane, 25 meter aluminum pool, with a 12' deep end with diving boards and a separate toddler pool. It is very similar to the Washington Park Pool. Fortunately for Camp Washington, their pool is located directly adjacent to their Community Center, and thus it is scheduled to remain in service. The Aquatics Plan calls for upgrades to the pool house, and I thought I heard talk of converting this to an indoor pool, and making it the Lifeguard Training Center. The Site has one baseball diamond, one soccer field, a blah playstructure and one well-used basketball court.

The Pool:
The Pool House:
The Community Center Building in the distance:
Deveroes and Hopple Street in the distance:
Kids getting ready to dive into the 12':
On your Mark:
The street outside the Community Center: