The future site of McCarren Park Pool, viewed from the corner of Bayard and Leonard Streets. September 10, 1935. In 1909, Greenpoint Park was renamed McCarren Park, after the 19th century New York State Assemblyman and Senator Patrick Henry McCarren. This photo shows the construction of the McCarren Park Pool, one of eleven public pools built during the LaGuardia Mayoral administration. The pool opened in the summer of 1936.

What happens when two Urban Archive staff members are practically neighbors? They go on a walk capturing as many then-and-now pictures as they can! If you’re in North Brooklyn sometime soon, see if you can take some of your own!

Join us for a dive into Brooklyn pools past and present. From the so-called World's Largest Swimming Pool in Coney Island, to an Art Deco masterpiece in Brooklyn Heights, to public pools across the borough from the WPA era and beyond, Brooklynites have always known how to make a splash!

The 1930s were an important moment in history of recreation in New York City. In the early 1930s the Department of Parks came under the control of Robert Moses, who had very specific goals regarding citywide access to recreation facilities year-round. Moses employed the at-the-ready manpower of the New Deal's Works Progress Administration to create a spate of new, modern, and large-scale recreational facilities. This included the construction of 11 neighborhood Olympic sized pools. The pools all opened over a few weeks during the summer of 1936. The pools and accompanying play centers were constructed of inexpensive materials but featured advanced design and technology in filtration, chlorination, and heating systems and underwater lighting. Most were rendered in sleek Art Moderne styles. Each had a wading pool, lap pool, and diving pool and could accommodate thousands of swimmers at a time. In the non-summer months both the pools and the play centers were converted for paddle tennis, shuffleboard, volleyball, basketball, handball, roller skating rinks, and dance classes. These facilities in total had a capacity for nearly 50,000 people at the same time. They changed the way New York kids spent their summers. In a 1934 press release announcing the pools Moses said, “It is no exaggeration to say that the health, happiness, efficiency and orderliness of a large number of the city's residents, especially in the summer months, are tremendously affected by the presence or absence of adequate swimming and bathing facilities.”

The teenage years are a difficult time, with emotions running high and relationships with the people in your life-changing quickly. Poetry is a universal outlet for teens to explore feelings about themselves and their world. While most poems stay tucked away in journals or at the bottom of trash cans, some brave souls are eager to share. Before social media, publication in a school newspaper was one of the most direct ways for a poet to reach their peers. We combed through our Brooklyn High School newspapers for a selection of the very best teen poetry Brooklyn had to offer. This story can be read in its original context here. Written by Sarah Quick

McCarren Play Center, September 22, 1941. McCarren Pool was the eighth of eleven WPA pools to open in the summer of 1936. The pool had a capacity of 6800 swimmers. The pool and adjacent building (seen here) was designed by Aymar Embury II, who was also involved in some capacity with the other 11 pools. The play center was rendered in the same simple Art Moderne style of most of the other WPA pool buildings, here with massive, high arched entryway and ticket booth. The McCarren Pool has a unique later history. While many of the other pools underwent renovations in the early 1980s, this pool closed in 1984. A planned renovation never came to be and the pool deteriorated for the next few decades. In 2005 a local choreographer was granted permission to create a site-specific dance piece at the pool. For the next few years the space was used as a popular music venue. In 2008 the venue was closed in preparation for the reactivation of the pool. The pool and play center reopened in 2012 after a $50 million restoration.

Take a walk from the Williamsburg Bridge to admire the neighborhood as it was and still is.