SUN KIND OF WONDERFUL
After winter of COVID gloom, city beaches & pools set to open on time
Beaches at Coney Island and throughout the city are set to open on Memorial Day weekend, marking a major step toward a return to life before the pandemic. Pools are set to open in late June.
Surf’s up, Big Apple!
City beaches and public pools will open on time this year, Mayor de Blasio announced Wednesday, almost a year after their reopenings were delayed during the height of the coronavirus pandemic.
The city’s eight public beaches are now set to open for Memorial Day weekend, which begins May 29, and public pools are scheduled to open June 26, right after the end of school.
“Summer is right around the corner, and we’re gearing up for an ontime pool and beach season,” de Blasio said Wednesday. “These beautiful outdoor spaces mean so much to New Yorkers, especially after the year we’ve all had.”
Last summer, the mayor was singing an entirely different song — a dirge, really — as the city struggled mightily to reduce COVID transmission rates and staunch the bleeding in city hospitals that had been overwhelmed with people testing positive for coronavirus.
The city delayed opening beaches until July 1 last year over concerns that it would accelerate the spread of COVID. Pools began opening July 24.
Along with pools and beaches opening to the public within a traditional time frame this year, Coney Island’s amusement parks are set to reopen this Friday. Rides at Luna Park and Deno’s Wonder Wheel Amusement Park will run at 33% capacity, under state guidelines.
Hizzoner’s announcement Wednesday comes as the city has distributed more than 4.6 million doses of COVID vaccines.
As of Wednesday, the percentage of people who tested positive for coronavirus averaged over seven days stood at 6.52%.
At the same time last year, when testing was far less prevalent, anywhere between 24% and 78% of patients in city hospitals were testing positive for the virus, depending on their zip code, according to city data.
De Blasio said Wednesday that the city will continue to “follow health guidance” from the state when it comes to beach and pool reopenings “to ensure the safety of everyone,” but he suggested that mask-wearing protocols could change as more vaccines are administered.
“Things are evolving,” he said. “I won’t be surprised if over the course of the summer there’s ways of doing things differently, and you know, giving people a little more freedom.”
The mayor also suggested he’s open to bringing back a city program that permitted dumpster bins to be used as pools on streets closed off to traffic as part of the city’s Open Streets program.
“You’re going to have a lot going on, but it’s a big city so if we can get the most out of Open Streets, we want to, so we’re certainly going to look at that option and see if that’s something we can do as well,” he said.
“I want folks to really be able to enjoy the outdoors in New York City this summer.”