Sonia Bordelies was at the front of the line, as usual, for Dry Dock Pool in Lower Manhattan on Monday. She had her breakfast of coffee and a buttered roll while waiting for the pool to open at 11 a.m.
Then, Ms. Bordelies, 59, a retired home health aide, and her group of friends rushed in to stake out their regular corner at the public pool.
Dry Dock Pool is an oasis on the hottest days for hundreds of New Yorkers who do not have the luxury of going to the Hamptons or beyond to escape the oppressive city heat. It is an alternative for families who cannot afford to send their children to pricey camps and swim lessons.
And most of all, it is a community that has sprung up around the friends and neighbors who swim together, and the city parks workers who run the pool and watch over them year after year.
“This is our summer home,” Ms. Bordelies said from the pool. “This is family here. I wouldn’t trade my pool for nothing.”
Ms. Bordelies has been coming to the pool since she was just 11 years old. She later brought her daughter and now her nephew. Her sister recently made 40 pastelillos, or savory meat pies, and brought them to share around the pool.
As New York grapples with an affordability crisis, Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration has highlighted the city’s 51 outdoor pools, which are free and open to everyone. Last Saturday, Mayor Mamdani officially opened the summer pool season, which runs until Sept. 13, by jumping into a pool in East Harlem in his suit and tie.
But as temperatures soared this week, several pools were temporarily closed because of mechanical and structural issues or construction, including at a massive pool in Red Hook, Brooklyn.
The Olympic- and intermediate-size outdoor pools that were open, including Dry Dock, were open extra late, until 8:30 p.m., and will be through Saturday because of the heat wave.
A Neighborhood Pool
Dry Dock Pool is named after the mid-19th century maritime industries that once brought thousands of dock workers, mechanics and shipbuilders to Lower Manhattan. The pool, which is just three-and-a-half feet deep, is part of a playground and has a separate wading pool for young children.
Amy Taylor, 67, a city parks supervisor, has run Dry Dock Pool every single summer for the past 25 years. A lean woman with close-cropped hair and a no-nonsense attitude, “Ms. Amy” oversees a staff of 21 parks workers, including seven lifeguards.
“She knows everybody, or I should say everybody knows her,” said Janene Wardrett, a pool supervisor.
“Like ‘Cheers,’” Ms. Taylor added.
The parks workers share a small office where they make announcements on an intercom system and hand out free bagged lunches to children. But Ms. Taylor can usually be found patrolling the pool area, keeping an eye out for any trouble. “I’m all over this place,” she said. “I don’t sit down. I run a tight ship. I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”
She spotted a boy who was running back and forth. “Who’s with this baby?” she shouted. When no one knew, she grabbed his hand, calmed him down and waited with him until his family came.
Not long after, a girl who was soaking wet came up and hugged Ms. Taylor. She didn’t mind, hugging the girl back.
“They’re my kids and I love them,” she said. “They respect me, and I respect them, and plus I know their parents.”
Not a ‘Dreary Experience’
Nearly 1.1 million people cooled off in the city’s outdoor pools last year, according to the Parks Department. Though that number has been steadily rising, it still falls well below the peak of 1.5 million people before the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, which curtailed pool operations and decimated the pipeline of lifeguards. Since then, city parks officials have worked to build back the pools.
This summer, parks officials have hired 869 pool lifeguards and plan to add more through July. Last year, they hired nearly 1,100 pool lifeguards, the highest number since 2019, after stepping up their recruiting efforts.
Parks officials have also increased free programs, including expanding swim lessons to 18 pools from eight pools last year, and offering early-morning lap swimming at 10 pools, up from five pools last year.
At every pool, there is complimentary sunblock and free lunches for anyone under 19 years old. Many of the pools, including Dry Dock, have been refreshed with brightly colored umbrellas, tropical plants, Adirondack chairs and games like cornhole on the pool deck.
“Just because you’re coming to a municipal pool doesn’t mean it has to be a dreary experience,” said Mark Focht, the first deputy parks commissioner. “It should be filled with fun.”
During heat waves, lines grow so long that parks workers run multiple “sessions” throughout the day to get more people in and out of pools. They also hand out bracelets so that people can come back at an assigned time.
Ms. Amy’s Pool
Ms. Taylor was raised by a single mother in Savannah, Georgia, and worked during the summers to help support her family. She never learned to swim, though she would go to the beach and walk in the ocean.
She moved to New York in 1983 to take care of her father, who had dementia and died three years later. Ms. Taylor said she became addicted to crack and landed in a homeless shelter in Brooklyn. She eventually got clean and moved to the Lower East Side.
In 1995, she was hired as a maintenance worker at nearby Tompkins Square Park and worked her way up to supervisor of that park. Though Tompkins has a mini pool for children, she runs the larger Dry Dock Pool every summer.
Ms. Taylor is known to be tough especially on rule-breakers, but she can also be funny and jokes with her young charges. After one girl demanded “where’s the food?” at lunchtime, Ms. Taylor responded, “You think you’re in a restaurant? Oh, I forgot, is her table ready?”
Corey Williams, 17, said that Ms. Taylor had seemed scary at first, but he has come to see her as a cool auntie.
“I’ve been here for a long time and she’s caring,” he said. “If she retires, I’m going to cry.”
On opening day, Ms. Taylor’s crew welcomed 180 people to Dry Dock Pool. During heat waves, they can see over 400 people a day.
When Ms. Bordelies was growing up in the 1980s, teenagers broke into the pool by cutting a hole in the fence with clippers. She would slip in after them for “night pool” with music blaring from boomboxes. They would party until the police chased them out.
There is no night pool under Ms. Taylor’s watch, of course, but there are still celebrations. For years, Ms. Taylor used to announce Ms. Bordelies’s daughter’s birthday on the intercom and ask everyone to sing “Happy Birthday.” Her daughter, now 29, returned to the pool last summer, and once again everyone sang “Happy Birthday.”
Ms. Bordelies and her friends like to tell Ms. Taylor that they should have a V.I.P. section with their names on the sun loungers so they don’t have to rush in every morning. Ms. Taylor says no every time.
“We always want to break rules, but Amy doesn’t let us,” Ms. Bordelies said with a laugh. “Somebody’s always fighting with Amy, but in a fun way because we love her.”
It has become a tradition for Ms. Taylor to host a cookout on the last day of the pool season to thank her staff and the community that has made her pool so much more than just a place to swim.
“It’s my neighborhood and these are my people,” Ms. Taylor said.
After the hot dogs are gone, Ms. Taylor’s people get back in the water for one last dip before the pool closes until next summer.
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