10. Outdoor Pools

Astoria Park Pool, a New York City Landmark
Image courtesy NYC Parks and Recreation

The Landmarks Commission has designated many recreational sites across New York City, including outdoor pools. Designated pools include those found at Astoria Park in Queens, Tompkinsville Pool in Staten Island, the Crotona Play Center in the Bronx, Highbridge Play Center, Thomas Jefferson Play Center, and Jackie Robinson Play Center in Manhattan, and Sunset Play Center, McCarren Play Center, and Red Hook Play Center, in Brooklyn, among others.

NY Landmarks Conservancy Talk

Bright green trees surround the front of the Alice Austen House in Staten Island

Most of these structures were built in the 1930s with funding from the Works Progress Administration. The large project required the talent of many architects and landscape architects. Architect Aymar Embury II, landscape architects Gilmore D. Clarke and Allyn R. Jennings, and civil engineers W. Earle Andrews and William H. Latham are names that pop up frequently in these designation reports. As a result of the time in which they were built, many of these recreational sites have wonderful Art Deco designs.