EyeQ Tech review EyeQ Tech EyeQ Tech tuyển dụng review công ty eyeq tech eyeq tech giờ ra sao EyeQ Tech review EyeQ Tech EyeQ Tech tuyển dụng double-skinned crabs double-skinned crabs double-skinned crabs double-skinned crabs double-skinned crabs double-skinned crabs king crabs double-skinned crabs double-skinned crabs crab roe crab food double-skinned crabs double-skinned crabs soft-shell crabs crab legs double-skinned crabs double-skinned crabs vietnamese seafood double-skinned crabs mud crab exporter double-skinned crabs double-skinned crabs crabs crab exporter soft shell crab crab meat crab roe mud crab sea crab vietnamese crabs seafood food vietnamese sea food double-skinned crab double-skinned crab crabs crabs crabs vietnamese crab exporter mud crab exporter crabs crabs
Metro

Parks Department report from 1940 links drop in drownings with more pools

By
Julia Marsh
Published April 17, 2020, 5:35 p.m. ET

A vintage, if macabre, graphic from a 1940 city Parks Department report shows a dramatic decrease in drownings as swimming pool capacity increased.

Five hundred New Yorkers drowned in city rivers and other waterways in 1934 when there was capacity for just 2,000 swimmers in public pools, according to the report authored by former Parks Commissioner and controversial urban developer Robert Moses.

In the six-year progress report, black prostrate figures represent 50 drowning deaths each.

The rows of bodies declined to 300 drowning deaths by 1940 after Moses oversaw the construction of 17 new, state-of-the-art public swimming pools for 60,000 New Yorkers.

The city taught 30,000 people to swim. The public pools were free to kids under 14 on weekday mornings and cost 10 cents for children and 20 cents for adults at other times.

“The pools were built to deal with the drowning problem,” former city Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe told The Post.

NY children keep cool in NY City pool.
Children keep cool in NY City pool.New York Post

“The reason so many people drowned [before] is that the kids were swimming in the rivers and the rivers aren’t really rivers but they’re tidal estuaries so there’s very ferocious tides and kids are jumping into the East River and the Harlem River to stay cool and they’re drowning — 50 a year,” Benepe said.

Benepe, who served as Parks Commissioner under Mayor Mike Bloomberg from 2002 through 2012, predicted this week that the city would see a spike in drownings this summer as a result of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s decision to close all the public pools.

De Blasio ordered the closures as a coronavirus precaution and a way to save some $12 million as he stares down a 10-figure budget crunch.

A page from a 1940s Parks Department report shows an alarming graphic about pool drownings
A page from a 1940s Parks Department report shows an alarming graphic about pool drownings.Courtesy of Adrian Benepe, former Parks Commissioner

De Blasio batted away Benepe’s concern during a virtual City Hall press briefing Friday claiming, “We’ve never seen our young people swimming in city rivers in large numbers.”

He later clarified, “We have not seen large numbers of city kids swimming in our rivers in generations. So that was my point. I do not believe that is going to happen. If we saw anything like that, we would create the enforcement to deal with it,” he said.

The mayor admitted Friday he doesn’t yet have a plan to keep New Yorkers cool during the summer if pools, beaches and playgrounds are closed because of the coronavirus.