

A +Pool in the East River - sschwartz
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/08/04/swim-swam-swum

======
Zikes
Off-topic, but why do traditional print companies always stubbornly insist on
ignoring the fundamental differences between print and web media?

All that text, and not a single link to the +Pool Kickstarter page. It doesn't
even have to be in the article text itself, having it at the end would be just
fine.

~~~
FatalLogic
Agreed

[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/694835844/pool-a-
floati...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/694835844/pool-a-floating-
pool-in-the-river-for-everyone)

~~~
spott
The article says they raised $300k, but this kickstarter only says $50k. Any
ideas where the discrepancy comes from?

~~~
tnorthcutt
That was the first kickstarter; they then ran a second one for the next phase
of the project: [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/694835844/pool-tile-
by-...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/694835844/pool-tile-by-tile)

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munificent
Is it just me, or is this a completely stupid idea?

So you take a big pool and stick it in the middle of a dirty river. You need
it to be full of water, so you filter a bunch of river water and fill it up.
Then, for no good reason I can discern, you take that nicely filtered water
and dump it right back into the river so that you can make room for more water
that you then have to filter.

What is the value add of continuous filtration here?

Why not just filter one pool's worth of water, using whatever process you
want, fill it up, and be done with it? What's so magical about "fresh" East
River water, aside from the presence of all of the nasty shit you have to work
super hard to remove?

~~~
thinkalone
Their intention is for the pool to act as a filter to clean NYC's
waterways[1]. Research into effective water filters could be worthwhile, but
the floating pool seems to overshadow that aspect.

[1]: [http://www.pluspool.org/about/](http://www.pluspool.org/about/)

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rayiner
Foul. Just foul.

> But when it rains hard—a quarter of an inch in an hour might do the
> trick—some four hundred sewer pipes around the city begin flushing untreated
> waste, using the rivers as municipal lavatories.

> For the statistically inclined, the figure to watch is the number of colony-
> forming units (of bacteria) per hundred millilitres. Beach advisories are
> often set at thirty-five.

> The skies opened. Grzybowski sampled again, and the C.F.U. count in the
> river exceeded 24,196, the highest possible measurement. “Pretty much raw
> sewage,” he reported. The would-be swimmer felt a wave of compassion for the
> seahorses. ♦

~~~
ganeumann
This is true of many riverfront municipalities. 771 cities in the US have
combined sewer overflows [1]. My partner monitors the pollution level in the
Hudson across from NYC (in Hoboken) and when it hasn't rained in a few days
the water is clean enough to swim. But after a heavy rain, it is, indeed,
foul.

That said, the Hudson is ridiculously cleaner than it was 20 years ago. So
much so that the Marine Borer (a type of worm that eats wood) has made its
return and is destroying the old piles that hold up parts of the landfill on
the waterfront. Unintended consequences, but worth it.

[1] List here:
[http://water.epa.gov/polwaste/npdes/cso/](http://water.epa.gov/polwaste/npdes/cso/)

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spodek
Some of us swam across the Hudson years ago --
[http://joshuaspodek.com/saturday_morning_hudson_river](http://joshuaspodek.com/saturday_morning_hudson_river)
(with pictures from the disposable cameras we brought)

~~~
unoti
A really interesting story!

> It took about an hour of swimming.

> Not that the swim was “extreme,” but a lot of “extreme” things people do are
> actually planned and structured, which de-extremizes them. If you sky dive,
> for example, you’re doing exactly what someone planned for you. I don’t know
> of anyone who just decided to swim across the Hudson. Yet it’s easy. Anyone
> can do it anytime...

Requiring an hour of continuous swimming easily excludes most people, and
makes it very dangerous. Swimming a mile is a big deal that requires a good
deal of training. Something like 6 weeks of working on it continuously 3 days
a week, with proper coaching. It's actually great workout goal. But just
jumping in the water and doing it... it's pretty flabbergasting unless you had
some idea of your long-distance swimming capabilities beforehand.

Considering the links at the end of the article, I'm guessing these are things
you've considered quite in-depth-- even if it wasn't until you survived.
Really fascinating stuff! Thanks for sharing.

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rsync
This exists already in Zurich. Sort of.

There is a river (a very clean river, of course) that flows through Zurich,
and there is a 200 foot or so length of the river that is buoyed/strung off to
form a decent sized "pool".

You go downstream, jump in, and swim upstream. You're swimming in the actual
river, just inside a marked off area with a nice deck on one side. It's really
quite well done.

Here it is:

[http://www.zuerich.com/en/visit/sport/lower-letten-river-
poo...](http://www.zuerich.com/en/visit/sport/lower-letten-river-pool)

~~~
SeoxyS
In Bern, there's a "pool" I used to love going to. It's got normal pools, but
there's also the opportunity to jump into the river, where the currents will
easily carry you half a mile in no time.

[http://www.bern.com/en/activities/adventure-fun/river-
swim/m...](http://www.bern.com/en/activities/adventure-fun/river-swim/marzili)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Dc1vmzjwJE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Dc1vmzjwJE)

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oh_sigh
Why not just fill it with fresh, chlorinated water? This project is never
going to happen without chlorination.

~~~
joezydeco
Yeah, I'm confused. I'm assuming the NY Health Department will be the ones
that certify the pool as usable by the public or not, right?

So this whole dashboard mess is really useless: it's a binary decision. Is the
pool safe or not? I mean yeah, if you want a nifty graphic screen showing how
messed up the river is then go nuts. But I'd rather not know that the water is
"kinda okay" for swimming. Either it's safe or it's not.

~~~
cowsandmilk
what is this dashboard you are referring to?

In most municipalities, all public pools require testing daily. One can assume
they're just going to test daily before opening like all the other pools and
use that decide whether to open.

~~~
joezydeco
[http://dashboard.pluspool.org/](http://dashboard.pluspool.org/)

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austinhutch
The +Pool has been one of my favorite projects to follow. When I think about
the most compelling kickstarter marketing efforts, it always springs to mind.
I'm always encouraged to hear about their progress. It's hard to believe just
how filthy the East River is. :(

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sireat
Actually, I know that a similar idea has been used before in late 19th
century, earlier in the 20th century, except it was much cruder. Basically a
section of the river was marked off by nets and people could swim in them. I
know some resorts still use a similar method, but again the filtering is only
for very large particles.

The hard part is the filtering. Developing an effective filtering method for
such a large body of water would be an impressive achievement.

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0x006A
Berlin has a floating pool build from an old ship.
[https://www.google.com/search?q=ARENA+BADESCHIFF&tbm=isch](https://www.google.com/search?q=ARENA+BADESCHIFF&tbm=isch)

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brandonmenc
"Technically, Norfolk has more gross tonnage."

