OVERVIEW
After being closed since 1984, the empty pool at the northern end of Greenpoint’s McCarren Park reopened as a public event venue in 2005 and hosted a series of concerts in summer 2006. The area is closed again for construction, that is estimated to last the next two years. The current renovations will provide for swimming, ice-skating, and off-season events. A relic from an era of vast public building projects, the enormous 50,000-square-foot venue, built in 1936, is an open space—once with room for 6,800 swimmers—with a mammoth, fortress-like brick entryway. In order to rent the space for an event, planners must obtain a permit from the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation.
