Last week at McCarren Pool: Oops, you missed it
It’s 8pm in Brooklyn and the sun has already set, one of the many reminders that it isn’t summer anymore. Another sign is last weekend’s final show at Greenpoint’s McCarren pool, once again relegated to a desolate reminder of good times, at least unti 2011, when the pool will reopen as a real, live, wet, swimming pool! The New York Times chronicles the end of (good) times here. We know you’ll miss them (or you missed them).
Yah, we know you all didn’t brave the lines at Yo La Tengo, but we will miss the crouching, sitting, lying on our stomachs on piles of chipping lead paint during the Tuesday movie nights — oh how hard it is to sit in one place for two hours on concrete. This summer we did manage to go to the nostalgic edition of Wet Hot American Summer, and that one flick about glam rock that we couldn’t concentrate on because we overindulged in that bucket of free Starbucks energy drinks. But what we’ll miss most, and we know you do, will be the after-pool traipse over to Matchless across the street, and the valiant attempts to score [an innocent chess] game with the crowds of lingering directionless hipsters.
Thankfully, we’re going to have a public pool of epic proportions if all goes well with Bloomberg’s budget, construction, and all. Hopefully the VIP line won’t be as long as the one into MGMT on that one soggy day in early August. And, I suppose, we’re equally scared of the lines everywhere else next summer, when all of the label PR kids and their legions of tag-along writers are trying to get into, when there is no universal pool event to house them all. Glasslands: watch out, they’re coming for you.
Everyone, get out of the pool. [NYTIMES]
I will so sorely miss the Pool Parties at McCarren Pool! So, apparently, the pool was landmarked and the city is getting $50 million from Bloomberg to re-build the McCarren Pool into an actual pool with water. According to Gothamist, the pool is projected to be ready for public use and enjoyment in 2011, and the swimming space will be 70% of the size of the old pool.
But in the meantime, where are future pool parties going to be? According to NAG, Neighbors Allied for Good Growth, they may be held at 50 Kent Ave, a former sanitation facility!! (But they don’t know yet if there may be environmental and/or health issues with this!) Sigh.
On the good side, I do also hear that the city is planning on re-building and augmenting parks in Bushwick and Greenpoint.