CONTRARY to popular belief, the Sonic Youth concert at Brooklyn’s McCarren Park Pool tomorrow will not signal the final notes ever played at the summertime music venue.
Not if the Parks Department has its way, that is.
On Sept. 9, new plans for the pool – which, at four-times Olympic size, is the largest of 11 city pools built in 1936 by Robert Moses – will be reviewed by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission.
If approved, renovations to the majestic brick arch will begin immediately with the reopening of the pool slated for 2011. Mayor Michael Bloomberg has promised $50 million for the renovation.
The design calls for a new U-shaped pool (about 70 percent of the current footprint), an ice-skating rink, a cafe, a community center and an exhibition center.
And, yes, a performance space – for use during the off-season.
“It doesn’t have to be an either/or. Hopefully we’ll have shows at the pool,” says Stephanie Thayer, who works for both the Department of Parks & Recreation and Open Space Alliance for North Brooklyn, a local nonprofit.
Neglected in the ’70s, McCarren Park Pool was closed in 1984 for a renovation that never occurred.
For 20 years, the decaying pool, given Landmark status last year, became a magnet for drug users and homeless people as the community argued about what to do with it.
“It was a fight about no water versus some water,” recalls Thayer.
“Today the plan is water gets in the pool.”
Today, however, it remains the only Moses pool that’s closed as a pool.
But in September 2005, the pool opened as a performance space, and it became one of the hippest places in New York. It started when the Parks Department approved a dance performance by Williamsburg choreographer Noemie Lafrance as long as $250,000 was raised to make the area safe for public access. Lafrance raised $50,000 and concert promoter Live Nation provided the rest, as well as concert equipment.
Then, JellyNYC, a group of Brooklyn DIY-ers, arranged to have free indie-music concerts on Sundays. The first JellyNYC Pool Party was held on a makeshift stage on July 9, 2006, with Les Savy Fav.
“I was nervous. A half-hour before the show began, only 300 or 400 people were there,” says Doug DeFalco, a JellyNYC co-founder.
“Then the World Cup finals ended and 3,000 people poured in.”
Three weeks later, Live Nation’s huge professional stage arrived.
Plenty of nighttime ticketed concerts – the Bloc Party, Wilco and Sonic Youth, for example – were held at the pool, as well as Elle Thursday movie nights, skateboarding and dance events, but the JellyNYC Pool Parties became synonymous with summer fun.
People came for the Slip ‘n Slide, serious dodge ball and the array of indie music.
“It allowed a bunch of lucky people to see some great shows, and gave a bunch of lucky bands the chance to play,” says James McNew, a member of Yo La Tengo, which played at Sunday’s final JellyNYC show, its biggest ever.
“It was an amazing sight,” says DeFalco. “To think about how far we’ve come, it was a lot to take in.”
From the start, DeFalco knew the space would become a pool again, but that didn’t make the end any easier.
“We’d love to be back there, but I understand the neighborhood is changing and there are other wants and needs from people who live there,” he says.
JellyNYC is hoping to land an outdoor Brooklyn space for 2009.
After all these years of waiting, “the whole community is excited,” says Community Board member Susan Albrecht, who’s been working for 10 years on the project.
This includes the new residents, as well. When the area was rezoned as residential rather than manufacturing, improving McCarren Park became even more essential.
On Sunday, Yo La Tengo’s Ira Kaplan got the other kind of pool party started. He poured a bottle of water into the dry pool from the stage, christening it for a sparkling future.
– marymhuhn@nypost.com