Tell Us About the City's Best Pools and Beaches

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With the sultry weather upon us, reader Kathy asked us if we knew about any definitive guides about which pools or beaches were the best. Sure, there are a few nice guides (see below) that tell you about some pools or beaches, but what do people who have actually been there think? So, Gothamist opens up the question to you: Post your suggestions and comments about beaches and pools in the city, and if there are a lot of great ideas, we'll follow up with another post compiling a comprehensive list. You can include pools and beaches of various kinds (public, hotel, gym, private, etc.) and anything else of note (like whether or not some private pool fees are worth it).

A number of guides: Manhattan User's Guide on hotel pools, NYC Pulse and About on city pools, and New York magazine just published a guide to area beaches you can reach without a car and ten city pool options. Here are lists of the city's public pools and public beaches; plus the Mayor officially opened up the city's 52 public pools on Friday.

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Astoria Pool. It's huge!

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That poor kid on the right has his budding man tits exposed for the whole world to see.

WOO HOO. Summer's ushered in again with a replay of the photos of Mike showing off his man breasts in his wet polo shirt. Now the boy on the right has a role model to look up to. He may grow up to be mayor.

I suggest taking the train at 34th street to long beach. That's the best one I found.

Avoid ALL City Public Pools, unless you like swimming in children’s urine. They can't put enough chlorine to counteract it completely.

This also counts double for Jones Beach Pool.
Avoid at all costs.

Egads, this pic is rife with man-boobage, both foreground and aft. I weep for the future.

Thank you, citizens of Gothamist, for scaring these fat little tubby ManBoob children for life.

They will forever remember your horrible descriptions of their generous busts and their self esteem will be nonexistent forever. Hopefully this picture didn’t come from a local newspaper where everyone may have gotten a glimpse of their tatas. Did it??

Why is the Mayor fully dressed in the pool? Did he fall in?

The indoor pool at Riverbank park (around 145th street) is huge and clean and great for swimming laps. I don't know how their outdoor pool is, or what the non-lap swimming options are there.

Kojak--believe you meant "scarring" not "scaring." (Athough there are several things about this photo that are scary.)

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These places are gems. And in the summertime, our pools and parks are totally necessary. And yes, they need more money for more chlorine and more lifeguards. But they're in dire need for more dedicated funding. Clearly.

The operational budget for the city's pools and parks needs more attention. In tough times, the parks budget is always the first to get cut and it's not restored unless people speak up.

Help out. I found this: Sign the Plea for Parks. www.parks1.org. It takes a minute.

I know someone already said it, but I went yesterday, and I love Long Beach. You can get a roundtrip plus beach pass for $17 at Penn Station (if you drive out, the beach pass only is $7). There were lots of people, but it was still really nice, not smelly, and surprisingly clean. If you go in the morning it's practically deserted.

Elle or Bob-How long does it take to get to Long Beach? And once you're out there, are there restaurants, etc, nearby?

Oops, nevermind...I see in the New York mag piece that it takes an hour to get to Long Beach.

Ooh, how about dog-friendly beaches?

I don't know, maybe 30-45 minutes on the train. In terms of restaurants, there's wendy's, burger king, a really good pizza place and a few small cafes near the train station. There's a boardwalk on the beach, but only one food place there which is mediocre, so eat before you walk to the beach. Train station is only four or five blocks away.

You should really consider the Brighton Beach half of Coney Island Beach. The beach itself is nice. And the food options in Brighton are a lot better than the deep fried stuff in Coney. Pic up some stuff and head to the beach. And then when things cool off, head over to a cafe.

It's just a Metrocard and a Q train ride away.

Anyone know of good lakes or rivers near NYC? I've got a car, but I don't know where to go! A list of these spots would be so nice. Sometimes fresh water is better.

The two ghetto pools in the East Village are Dry Dock and Pitt Street. Rule enforcement at the Pitt Street pool is lax to say the least. This causes a constant state of mayhem (cannonballs, screaming, and that special kind of straight legged poolside running) and makes it not very pleasant for an aging hipster to visit. On the otherhand, Dry Dock is more or less locked down. For this reason it's not as crowded and the hormone crazed adolescents tend to avoid it. You can spread out a towel, read a book and take the occasional dippy, pretending you're at a luxary resort. The one bad thing about Dry Dock is that the surly teenage lifeguards occasionally rope the available pool space off and crowd everyone into half the pool. They say this is because they don't want to have to watch the whole pool. This strikes me as somewhat autocratic and foolish, although I've been occasionally able to use my "white-middle-ageness" to bully them into letting me do laps in the empty half.

Don't want to watch the whole pool? That's crazy talk.

Oh, here are some more pool reviews:

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=184500

(how do you make this a live link anyway?)

The Pitt Street Pool is filled with trouble-makers. The Parks and Pools and Beaches need more PEP Officers to keep things safe.

Kids are especially excitable around pools, so having a Parks Enforcement Police officer around will keep the teenage thugs-in-training from hurting anyone.

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About dogs: I think that it's safe to go when the lifeguards aren't on duty - before 10am and after 6pm.

Otherwise, you might get in trouble.

To be sure, call the beaches at -
Rockaway 718 520 5900
Coney Island 718-965-8900

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Have any of you swum in the Red Hook pool? My friend and I say we're gonna go every year but we never do...

well my my family and I want to go to a nice place where theres a beach or possibly a nice pool and lake. But somewhere were its not so boring to be around and that is not so whack. Well we dont know were to go i like celan water so im stressing it hear. so plz let me know if anything

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