Suit up, men

One of New York’s great public pools is getting a splash course in gender equality. For many years, boys and men swimming at Hamilton Fish, the Olympicsized outdoor public pool on the Lower East Side, have had no place to change their clothes — while girls and women enjoyed a room with benches and lockers.

So while the shes could change in private, the hes either had to arrive ready for the pool, use an awkward, out-of-the-way toilet stall — or try the towel-around-the-waist technique.

Finally, in a victory for equal rights for men and boys, that will no longer be the case: The Parks Department is installing a separate private changing area for the guys, to be in place for next summer.

The sex discrimination at Hamilton Fish — an anomaly among the city’s 36 outdoor public pools — was pointed out in this space this past summer when we commented on the city Human Rights Commission and Parks Department dumbly considering eliminating, then merely cutting back on, women-only swimming for ultra-Orthodox Jewish women at two Brooklyn indoor public pools.

It was ironic, we thought, that the city would go to Olympic-sized lengths to scrutinize a few hours a week of women-only wading at one pool in Brooklyn, but would ignore an all-hours inequity for men on the Lower East Side.

Ham Fish Pool is no small deal. It was the first of the 11 giant public pools Robert Moses opened in the summer of 1936. Last summer, Ham Fish was used 87,703 times during open swim hours; another 1,684 people took lessons or participated in adult lap swim or seniors hours.

It would figure that about half, or 45,000 were men or boys who didn’t have a place to change. Next summer they will.

Thanks to the Parks Department for changing, so swimmers can change themselves.