Pools and Beaches
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
Five months after the city Department of Investigation suggested 13 ways to clean up the Parks Department’s Lifeguard Division, none of them have been fully acted upon as beach season is upon us.
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