The Floating Pool Lady : : A Quest to Bring a Public Pool to New York City's Waterfront / / Ann L. Buttenwieser.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Cornell University Press Complete eBook-Package 2021
• VerfasserIn: Buttenwieser, Ann L.,
• Place / Publishing House: Ithaca, NY : : Cornell University Press, , [2021]; ©2021
• Year of Publication: 2021
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (304 p.) :; 4 maps, 24 color plates

Why on earth would anyone want to float a pool up the Atlantic coastline to bring it rest at a pier on the New York City waterfront? In The Floating Pool Lady, Ann L. Buttenwieser recounts the triumphant adventure that started in the bayous of Louisiana and ended with a self-sustaining, floating swimming pool moored in New York Harbor. When Buttenwieser decided that something needed to be done to help revitalize the New York City waterfront, she reached into New York City's nineteenth-century past to find inspiration. Buttenwieser wanted New Yorkers to reestablish their connection their riverine surroundings and she was inspired by the prospect of city youth returning to the Hudson and East Rivers. What she didn't suspect was that outfitting and donating a swimming facility for the free enjoyment of the public would turn into an almost Sisyphean task. As she describes in The Floating Pool Lady, Buttenwieser battled for years with politicians and struggled with bureaucrats as she brought her "crazy" scheme to fruition. From dusty archives in the historic Battery Maritime Building to high-stakes community board meetings to tense negotiations in the Louisiana shipyard, Buttenwieser retells the improbable process that led to The Floating Pool Lady tying up to a pier at Barretto Point in the Bronx, ready for summer swimmers. Throughout The Floating Pool Lady, Buttenwieser raises consciousness about persistent environmental issues and the challenges of developing a constituency for projects to make cities livable in the twenty-first century. Her story and that of her floating pool is both warning and inspiration to those who dare to dream of realizing innovative public projects in the modern urban landscape.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acronyms and Abbreviations -- Members of the Floating Pool Crew -- Map 1. New York City and New Jersey’s Hudson River Waterfront. Courtesy of William Nelson. -- Prologue: Swim, Annie, Swim! -- 1. Fire and Water -- 2. The Eureka Moment -- 3. Waterfront in Despair -- 4. Hoboken Ho -- 5. Finding the C500 -- 6. Contracts and Crawfish -- 7. Kafka on the Pier -- 8. Perspective Matters -- 9. The Orwellian Bureaucracy -- 10. The Big Jump -- 11. The Lady Moves to the Bronx -- Epilogue: Swim, New York City’s Children, Swim! -- Acknowledgments -- A Note from the Author -- Notes -- Selected Bibliography -- Key to map 2, the floating baths, page 22 -- Index