The Double-D pool has been saved!
The budget deal inked last night by the mayor and the City Council spared the hottest of the hot-button issues, ensuring that all city pools, including the Douglass-Degraw pool in Gowanus, will reopen on schedule on June 29.
“Because of the responsible budgeting over recent years by the administration and the Council that kept the city’s fiscal house in good shape despite the national recession, we were able to avoid the worst-case scenarios and keep many important services going — like all city pools,” Mayor Bloomberg said in a statement.
The deal calms two weeks of shockwaves that reverberated through two nearby housing projects and all across the heart of Brownstone Brooklyn after the Double-D pool on Douglass and Nevins streets was slated for closure due to budget cuts.
Pool users — and their elected officials — rallied to rejigger the budget to spare the Double-D, plus three other city pools slated for a dry summer, and their efforts were successful.
“I am thrilled to announce that the D and D Pool will open on time this season,” Councilman Steve Levin (D–Williamsburg) said in a statement. “Residents from Gowanus, Boerum Hill, Carroll Gardens, and Cobble Hill collected signatures, wrote letters, sent e-mails, and called my office to ask that the pool open this season.”
Levin, whose district includes the pool, credited Councilman Domenic Recchia (D–Coney Island) and Council Speaker Christine Quinn for “working with me to find funds in the Council to keep the pool open.”
Naturally, Sam Neely, who created a Facebook page to save the pool, credited his “friends” online.
“I guess you really can do something through social networking sites,” he said.
But pool advocates could be victims of their own success. “I am expecting a lot more people this year,” Neely said. “But it’s all good — the more people who come show how important it is for the area.”
Last year, the pool cooled off 37,800 people — far fewer than other, larger public pools.
