The People's Pool

2019

MIT, Core 2 studio, with Hugh Ebdy and Ryan Wu

Street poster for the opening of Coney Island Pools on June 3rd, 1924: a diver over a blue pool, framed in wavy red and white

An alternative history of the WPA pools, told through Coney Island Pools, a public pool and gymnasium on Coney Island, and the printed matter it left behind: the street poster for its opening in 1924, a New York Times report of a raid on the parties held there during Prohibition in 1929, a Vanity Fair article on the shuttered pools in 1936, a Playboy exposé of the speakeasy hidden inside them in 1972, and a Wall Street Journal article on their reclamation and extension in 2056.

New York Times front page from 1929 reporting that a raid on the Coney Island gymnasium revealed illegal parties of the rich

Vanity Fair, June 1936: a cover of bathers at the pool's edge, and Ruin and Recreation, a spread on the brick-vaulted pools in their heyday and shut down

Playboy, June 1972: The Hidden Speakeasy, with a 1920s party on the cover, the hidden storage room, a plan of the secret rooms and a drawing of a party under the pool

Wall Street Journal, June 16, 2056: drones building a tower on the brick vaults of the pool, a map of drone routes across the city, and a timeline of Coney Island Pools from 1922 to 2056