People Won’t Stop Fighting, Pooping at the McCarren Pool
In yet more bad PR for the McCarren pool, they were forced to evacuate Monday afternoon after a child had what a Parks spokesperson diplomatically termed a “diaper accident” in the water. Ew.
Weirdly, horrifyingly, this isn’t even the first poop-related grievance the pool has seen since its grand re-opening just a week ago.
“I went outside to water my plants and I found someone had defecated right in front of the salon,” said Meredith Chesney, whose salon Mousey Brown is close to the pool (and its long lines of bathroom-less swimmers). “It’s shocking.”
Other neighbors are now worried after multiple outbreaks of violence at the pool, along with the influx of unruly teenagers from nearby neighborhoods without pools of their own, such as Bushwick. “I’m not happy and not because of the pool, but because of the fighting,” said 71-year-old Tony Otero, who has lived near the pool for decades. “It’s not good for the community. It’s trouble. All kinds of kids are coming here.”
Complaints from the “get off my lawn” and “stop pooping on my lawn” crowds aside, officials argue that the pool’s problems are minor in the scope of its success has a haven for up to 1,500 swimmers at once in the midst of a crushing heatwave, and are proportionally similar to incidents that crop up at other public pools across the city. And, before you lose all faith in humanity and/or the efficacy of good civic works, the recent opening of a pop-up pool in Brooklyn Bridge Park has been nothing short of idyllic. From the Times:
“Classic songs like John Lennon’s “Imagine” floated over an artificial beach stocked with white sand and beach chairs. Smiling teenagers handed out cupcakes and lemonade.”
The new pool’s success can either be attributed to its less ambitious 60-person capacity, or the fact that no one invited all the riff raff from Bushwick. The jury’s still out.
