Where were you during the mid-July heat emergency? I was at home in Central Harlem enjoying the privilege of air conditioning, but I realized that cooling the indoors while dumping hot, moist air outside only added to the sweaty mix of high temperature and humidity. To counter that, I wanted to jump into a cold, sparkling pool–Jackie Robinson Pool.
Upon reaching 146th Street and Bradhurst Avenue, I felt and looked like I had already gone for a swim. I lingered across the street. “They don’t pay me enough to deal with this,” an NYC Parks employee on her break told me. We stood together in the shade, gazing at the throngs of rambunctious children–most of them Black and brown–waiting under scaffolding to have their bags searched before gaining admission.
I entered through a cool, dark lobby. The heaviness and refuge of the masonry walls contrasted with the pool beyond: a churning, welcoming mass of water, full of toddlers, kids, teenagers, and adults synchronously hopping out and jumping back in, blurring even the hard edges of the concrete deck and tiered seating area. As soon as I submerged myself, I became one with the pool. Here, the water was a connector. The constant movement of crowded bodies (jostling, splashing, dancing, dunking) was potentially violent, but the water’s response made the shared space visible and fluidly negotiable.
Coming up from swimming in the water to see the stoic brick bathhouse, it was easy to forget why we’d flocked there in the first place: the deadly heat wave that foretells the looming climate crisis. Despite the complicated history of segregation that mires NYC’s public pools, plunging in at Jackie Robinson Pool dissolves age and identity differences, transforms chaos into play, and reminds us, urgently, that we are all in this together.