With this blistering heat wave baking the city, don’t you wish you could spend a lazy day at the Astoria Pool? Here it is in 1936, the year the pool opened. If you look closely, you can see that some of the boys are wearing swim trunks, while others are dressed in the two-piece tank suit that was the fashion in the teens and 1920s.
Photo: New York City Department of Parks and Recreation
Tags: Astoria Park Pool, Hell Gate Bridge, Queens
Ephemeral New York 
April 1, 2009 at 3:07 am |
[…] performed a diving and comedy show (with props, music, and even animals) on Wednesdays nights at Astoria Pool, one of the massive public swimming facilities Robert Moses built in the […]
December 14, 2009 at 9:30 pm |
I remember going swimming summer evenings with my parents in the 1960’s. It always looked so big. And at night it was scary as in the middle of the big pool there were pyramid lights.
June 11, 2011 at 6:04 am |
[…] like these probably played out every day at dozens of city public pools, some built during the Depression with WPA […]
February 6, 2012 at 2:27 am |
I came here often in the late 50’s to late 60’s…What a great place…and I do remember those scary pyramid lights.
What was beautiful is that you had to walk down to the locker rooms from the upper hillside…and all the pathway lights lit up the trees on a hot summer night.
I am so glad Astoria Pool was part of my childhood…
February 6, 2012 at 2:30 am |
What a wonderful place this was foe me growing up in the late 50’s to late 60’s…I do remember those scary pyramids!
I do remember walking down to the locker rooms from the upper hillside, and all the pathway lights glowing through the trees on a hot, humid summer night…It was magic.
March 20, 2013 at 4:14 am |
Did this pool really once exist? It looks HUGE! Even bigger than the current Astoria pool. The current one doesn’t look like it’s in the same location. What made them close down and fill in the pool?