Back in the Water

The fieldhouse at McGuane Park is a pretty typical early ‘70s light-Brutalist building. There’s a smaller cylindrical concrete volume attached to a larger rectangular concrete volume. In the cylindrical volume, there’s a gym, a small office for staff, and a lobby. In the rectangular one, there’s a pool, three locker rooms, and at least one basketball court. I don’t know how many courts there are exactly because I’ve never gone inside the basketball court area. I only go to the fieldhouse to swim laps.

I stopped going in March of last year, when the pandemic caused the facility to close. I started going again this April, when the Chicago Parks District reopened the indoor pool for lap swimming. My second or third day back, a neighborhood woman—I don’t know her name, but I’ve seen her at the pool before—came into the locker room while I was changing and started taking pictures.

“SIX MILLION DOLLARS!” she hollered over and over. “Six million dollars, and they didn’t do nothin’!”

She was referring to the renovation of the fieldhouse, which took place mostly while it wasn’t in use due to COVID-19.

“I’m taking pictures because I want to show my friends. They didn’t do nothin’. Six million dollars, and they didn’t do nothin’.”

As far as I can tell, “nothing” isn’t quite accurate. There is new signage, new lobby furniture, some new finishes in the common areas, and I think they expanded the windows next to the pool.

But “nothing” might as well have been accurate, because whatever improvements were made don’t matter: I was back at the pool after thirteen months without it. Who cares about the renovation, and who cares what the building looks like? I just want to swim.