1940
Highbridge Park Center, June 20, 1940.
The land next to the 1848 High Bridge is an appropriate location for a municipal swimming pool, being the original location of the old High Bridge Reservoir. The pool and play center opened July 14, 1936. The play center was designed in the same simplified Art Moderne style of the other 1936 pool houses. The building is particularly notable for its ashlar construction. Ashlar construction means the stones used to create the walls were finely and uniformly cut into their shape and as such create very thin joints between blocks. This type of masonry is visible in the long retaining wall that runs along Amsterdam Avenue. Another unique feature of the building was the lobby murals by artist Charles Clarke.
The pool facilities have been renovated a number of times since the 1960s.The earliest work either covered up or destroyed the lobby murals. Along with a number of the other WPA pools, High Bridge underwent a renovation project in the early 1980s that updated the heating, ventilation, electrical, and filtration systems and made the facilities handicap accessible. More recent work on the pool occurred in the late 1990s and in 2015 the actual High Bridge itself was reopened to the public after being closed for more than 40 years.