It was one thing when I was a kid for this pool to be lacking even the most basic amenities, but it's only gotten worse over the years. I can deal with the lack of a snackbar or soda machine (though I swear there used to be a snack machine once upon a time...?), but there are NO lockers -- not even basic, first-come-first-served, bring your own locks to lock up your wallet and phone -- the deck chairs are either damaged or rusty, the deck umbrellas (if you can find them) are moldy, there's no way to control the temperature in the showers (the water starts freezing and slowly builds to boiling), the "changing rooms" are tiny stalls with broken curtains, the showers similarly have broken curtains, more broken things in the bathroom stalls themselves, trash floating around the back near the sad excuse for a tennis court... seriously, this place is a dump. The staff are also INCREDIBLY inattentive -- I remember when I first started going here, you HAD to ask the attendants to find your pool pass before you were allowed entry. Now, every time I've gone the teenage staff are ALWAYS too busy chatting with their friends on the phone to talk to anyone at the window; trying to ask a simple question ("what are your hours?") gets massive sarcastic eyerolls and no answers. I've easily walked into the pool without bothering to sign in, which makes the lack of lockers even worse -- it would be *incredibly simple* for random people off the street to walk in and pick up wallets and phones left on the pool deck.
The pool wasn't always this bad -- when I was a kid (late 90s -- early 2000s), the place was much cleaner, with nice, new deck chairs and even a few potted plants on the deck to liven the place up. The bathrooms were clean and well-maintained, and the showers had a consistent, comfortable lukewarm temperature. They still had no snack machines, but I don't think that's necessary for such a small neighborhood pool, and they had no lockers... but in the late 90s early 2000s, barely anyone had a cell phone, so you weren't *expected* to carry one, and the lack of a snack bar meant there was no *reason* to bring your wallet, so it didn't feel like a safety issue. Plus, at that time, the people at the front desk actually bothered to make sure you were from the neighborhood before you entered the pool.
I don't know what happened in the 10 years between when I left for college and when I moved back home, but whoever currently maintains the pool demonstrates a truly excessive lack of care bordering on sheer negligence. They do the bare minimum to keep the water clean, and that's it. read more
