“It’s never been more important that the public and private sector address this safety crisis by expanding our network of pools and supporting programs that teach children to swim.”
The public pool at Goodhue Park in Staten Island in 2021. (Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)
Confession time: I’m a lifelong New Yorker who grew up in a neighborhood that abuts the East River, secured millions of dollars to restore one of the city’s most iconic public pools, and never learned how to swim.
Unfortunately, the same is true for many children growing up around the city today. It’s why, as we prepare for summer, many New Yorkers are extra vigilant about their children going near the water to cool off. Headlines about missing children that evolve into drownings have become far too common from June to August, when young people with few other outlets seek the unfamiliar terrain of the water to cool off.
This has to stop. It’s never been so important for us to reverse the trend and ensure as many New York City children as possible learn how to swim. It will certainly take all of us to get this done, but there’s already a network of programs like the one I now run ready to work with city and state leaders to make this happen. It’s never been more important that the public and private sector address this safety crisis by expanding our network of pools and supporting programs that teach children to swim.
We know the challenge of the work ahead. Seven people drowned while swimming off of New York City beaches last year, which marked the highest number of fatalities since the pandemic. Almost all of those were off the shores of the Rockaways. The City Council to its credit has raised the alarm bell, as Speaker Adrienne Adams noted in her State of the City address last year that one in four New York children don’t know how to swim. The ratio of Black New York children, she noted, is an alarming one in three.
There isn’t a magic bullet to a solution here. Of course, we always need more lifeguards at city beaches to spring into action when there’s an emergency. Then there’s the fact that a City Council analysis found a whopping 3 million New Yorkers—more than a third of our population—live in a district that doesn’t have a public pool. That alone is a problem because pools provide a safe, well-staffed venue for young people to learn and then safely swim.
Public pools are important and the 91 currently operated is certainly not enough. Even still, all but 12 of those pools are outdoors, which means they’re only open basically two months out of the year—essentially Fourth of July to Labor Day. That doesn’t match the need when climate change has made it hotter from May into late September (if we’re lucky).
That’s where the non-profit space must step up to fill the gap. At Variety Boys & Girls Club of Queens, we’ve sought to do our part by offering different swim programs throughout the year. These lessons come at various levels based on children’s familiarity with the water, their age, and other factors. Apart from just lessons, we provide free access to many of the 4,000 students in our program.
Our mission is to ensure the children who grow up in the Queensbridge, Ravenswood, Astoria and Woodside Houses have a healthy relationship with the water that surrounds them. We, along with the network of other swim programs throughout the city, have done our part to reverse this trend. In many cases, we have worked together to ensure this generation is the last to not have a safe relationship with the 520 miles of coastline that make up New York City.
This kind of commitment is why Variety Boys & Girls Club of Queens has made swimming an essential part of our plans for the future. Our hope is to break ground later this year on a new, $293 million facility that will deliver the first planetarium to Queens, along with new housing, a school, and a state-of-the-art theater. Our new aquatic center will be the crown jewel of this proposed project which will include a regulation-sized eight lane pool, wading pool for youth beginning their swimming journey with their parents, and wet locker rooms open year round. T
his vision became closer to reality this spring thanks to a $2.5 million allocation from State Sen. Jessica Ramos, who grew up using our existing pool. This new facility will allow us to serve 16,000 youth here in Queens, giving each a chance for interaction with the aquatics center and potentially lifesaving swimming lessons.
As we continue to raise funds for this project, we’re also committed to expanding swimming programs right now because our children cannot wait. We need to build on the existing capital commitments to build more public pools as well as support the nonprofit-owned ones that operate throughout the year.
With the weather getting warmer, we all have a role to play. Let’s ensure the tragedies of last summer don’t repeat themselves this year.
Costa Constantinides is the CEO of Variety Boys & Girls Club of Queens and previously represented City Council District 22.
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