A floating pool that could one day offer New Yorkers a chance to swim in water filtered from the East River is moving forward despite delays caused by ice floes and blizzards and seaweed.
The latest iteration of the plan, now referred to as POOL1, is essentially 25% of the size of the original pool and will be towed into place for testing this summer on the shore of Lower Manhattan beneath the FDR Drive. The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene is demanding a strict ‘dry run’ of the pool without bathers.
The pool is still waiting for six approvals from the health department and its creators are still hoping to open it for swimming by the summer of 2027. The team is adding a chlorine dosing system to the pool at the request of the health department that would only be used to clean the pool in the event of an emergency. For normal operations, it would rely on mechanical filtration of water from the East River…