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Keep Beaches Open Through End of September, City Council Urges Parks Dept

By Gwynne Hogan | March 10, 2015 3:30pm
 City council members are pushing for the extension of the city's beach and pool season.
City council members are pushing for the extension of the city's beach and pool season.
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Spencer Platt/Getty Images

NEW YORK CITY — A push to keep the city's beaches and pools open a little longer could be a step closer to reality.

City Council members, proposing a bill that would have the Parks Department extend the public recreation season from its current closure date on Labor Day until the start of school on weekdays and the end of September on weekends, hashed out the issue at a budget hearing Monday.

Proponents say the current gap between the end of beach and pool season and the start of school — even when it's only a few days long — leaves sweaty city kids with nowhere to escape the heat.

Many of those kids can be tempted to head to the city’s beaches on these days with or without lifeguards, raising safety concerns, supporters say.

Under the terms of the bill, the city's beaches and public pools would stay open weekdays from Labor Day, Sept. 7, 2015, until the start of school, which this year falls on Sept. 9, 2015.

The facilities would also stay open and be manned by lifeguards each weekend in September.

“We started working on [the proposal] right after last September when we had one of the hottest days of the year it was after Labor Day. It was a day schools were closed,” said Councilman Mark Levine, one of the bill's sponsors. “We had a situation where it was incredibly hot, everyone was off school, and the beaches and pools were closed.”

This year, the proposed extension would mean an additional seven days of operation — which the Parks Department estimates would tack on an additional $1 million to the city's budget, according to Levine.

Levine said some of those costs would be canceled out by revenues generated through rentals of Parks Department’s concessions stands and tax revenue levied from local merchants. At this time, these fees go into the city’s general coffer, not directly back to Parks Department, Levine said.

“[That would] at least partially defray the cost of the lifeguards, which is really what the main cost is,” Levine said.

For Levine, extending the pool and beach season is about safety, but it’s also a question of equity.

“Low income families are less likely to leave the city on weekends and go to the Hamptons or a lake upstate or a pool in New Jersey,” Levine said. “For them to be able to get a nice place to swim and cool off on a subway or a bus is...a great service we can provide.”

Officials from the Parks Department declined to discuss the details of the proposal, but released a statement saying, "We have been reviewing the possibility of extending the season of operation at these facilities. It is early in the budget process and we will continue to discuss this and many other issues with the city council as the process moves forward."