Old Gray Lady on Floating Pool Lady

By on August 12, 2007 9:24 am in Fun, News, Tourism

The New York Times has a piece today on the Floating Pool Lady:

New York Times: Coney Island on the Mind: A faux beach opened two summers ago in Long Island City, Queens, accessible by water taxi. If I’m going to take a taxi, I might as well go to the airport. So off I go, to the newest hybrid, the Floating Pool Lady, a large swimming pool on a barge in the East River, and a “beach” made of genuine sand, rimmed by burlap and plunked in a concrete lot. The beach, which opened on July 4 near the foot of Joralemon Street, just off Brooklyn Heights, looks like an egg yolk sizzling in the sun.

A second egg yolk a small distance away holds soccer nets and room for beach volleyball. If, from my towel, I look only at my polished toenails covered by sand and only five degrees to my right, where an Asian couple on beach chairs is persuading their 7-year-old daughter to wear sunscreen, or five degrees to my left, where two young women in black bikinis are lying belly down on colorful towels, reading fashion magazines, I do believe that I am at a beach.

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  • Beavis

    I had read that there’s a chemical that can be added to a pool, like chlorine, that turns purple when it encounters urea.

    So when someone decides to take a leak in the public pool, there’s a cloud of purple near the offending liquid, and it follows the perpetrator out of the pool, and discourages further releases due to extreme public humiliation.

    I’m wondering if anyone knows of this wonder chemical.

  • http://selfabsorbedboomer.blogspot.com Claude Scales

    I thoroughly enjoyed Ms. Bernikow’s well-written article, and note that she considered it a “tip of the hat” to the Heights that the “snack shack” offers “soy frankfurters and fresh carrots” as well as “harder stuff.” OK, I get it with the fresh carrots, but does anyone really like soy franks?

  • http://www.myspace.com/billyreno Billy Reno

    We got there Sunday at 3pm and were in the pool by five. One of my twin five year-old girls swam by herself to me for the 1st time (20 feet!) Glorious day! Great DJ too!