Parks Department
Lifeguards in their first and second years will get a boost of over $3 an hour — and soon there will be more places to train for and take the lifeguard test, for free.
Warmer weather and other ecosystem shifts have the city’s gardeners and foresters staring at ‘existential questions in horticulture.’
Day camps that used to offer sessions at the city’s public swimming holes have been treading water with pricier private pools since the beginning of the pandemic.
The proposals, which include figuring out where to build new pools, aim to create a stronger lifeguard pipeline in New York City.
With two other pools due to close, it may soon be the only Parks-operated indoor swimming pool open in Queens.
Five prefabricated bathrooms will offer relief in one park in each borough — after a painful wait for a company coping with city bureaucracy.
Still feeling the cramps from staff shortages last summer, the Parks Department is making changes to encourage more people to become lifeguards. Here’s how to take the test.
Now the issue is a repair to the pool’s special floor that’s 0% complete — and as the center is already scheduled to close, for at least another year, the summer after next.
Councilmember Lincoln Restler wants to cover his district with saplings, from Boerum Hill to Greenpoint
All the city’s indoor pools were closed Thursday so lifeguards could attend an hours-long ‘meet and greet’ at Chelsea Recreation Center in Manhattan, the first such gathering with the commish in recent memory.
When the sibling owners of Dragonetti Brothers Landscaping were indicted in an insurance scam last year, tree maintenance in Brooklyn and Queens was put on hold. But the city Department of Investigation is working with Parks officials to rev up the chainsaws again.
GOT A TIP?
We’re here to listen. Email tips@thecity.nyc or visit our tips page for other ways to share.
Housing officials are consulting the experts in city green space to tackle longstanding problems at some crumbling play spaces.
With major change to an LGBTQ-favorite park on the horizon, queer beachgoers rejoiced in the annual Ms. Colombia Walk even as they face an un-shore future.
More public school swim lessons, flexible hours, and adopting “shallow water” rules are all possible streams to more robust beach and pool seasons in the years to come.
It’s good news-bad news as sharks, dolphins, whales and turtles swarm New York City.
In the face of a dire lifeguard shortage, the parks department has gotten approval to truncate the exam required to patrol the city’s smaller watering holes.
But the change is only for this summer as the Parks Department races to get from 778 lifeguards to its goal of at least 1,400.
The move comes just days before July 4, and after THE CITY reported on the unprecedented denial of dual-employment waivers.
Dozens of applicants who’d previously failed the qualifying tests were sent automated text messages this week from the Parks Department gauging their interest in taking a new accelerated class to become lifeguards.
Mayor’s look at rule changes comes after THE CITY highlighted a newly enforced rule that prevents municipal workers from moonlighting — and two drownings on Rockaway Beach.
The Parks Department is facing a dire shortage of lifeguards for the city’s dozens of pools and beaches with just 480 certified guards.
In case you missed it
- Justice Reforms Not Expected to Make It Out of Albany Budget Talks
- East Village Tenants Say New Landlord Is Pushing Them Out
- Surprise: Wall Street Bonuses Weather Economic Storm
- Landlords Demand Major Rent Increase After Dismal Housing Report
- Adams Inks Deal with Aetna, Paving Way for Switch to Medicare Advantage
LOCAL NEWS POWERED BY NEW YORKERS.
We cover the uncovered, hold the powerful accountable, and make sense of the greatest city in the world.