Pool Hopping

Feel like cooling off in style? Indoor public pools in this city range from Roman-style grottoes to the merely grotesque, but for all-around architectural character you can hardly do better than the Hansborough Recreation Center in Harlem: the luxe 1920s natatorium features a giant barrel roof topped by a skylight, as well as decorative tilework and a lofted gallery. Unfortunately, the pool has been closed since just before the pandemic, in need of urgent repairs but with no set date for reopening. In the meantime, you could go to another charming, old-timey bathhouse, the pool at the Constance Baker Motley Recreation Center on East 54th—or rather, you could consider going, since it, too, is closed, also for repairs, and also with no certain timeline for reopening. The same goes for the lovably grungy Tony Dapolito Center pool in Greenwich Village and the hypermodern Flushing Meadows Corona pool in Queens; that leaves the city’s outdoor pools, whose season is fast drawing to a close and which lacked lap hours this summer, owing to staffing shortages. Never mind. Let’s just hope for a very mild September.