4. Highbridge Pool
In In the Heights, when Usnavi’s bodega sells a lottery ticket a big musical number breaks out called “96,000.” This is filmed at Highbridge Pool inside Highbridge Park with High Bridge Water Tower looming behind. There is a coordinated swim performance in the pool, as well as scenes shot on the stairs surrounding the pool.
The pool is one of the many outdoor pools that are part of the NYC Parks system and the fifth of eleven built during the Great Depression using FDR‘s WPA funding. As such, many feature an Art Deco or Art Moderne design. At Highbridge, there are two Olympic size pools and when it opened in 1936, both Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia and Robert Moses who was a big advocate of public pools, were present.
