Allows swimming at Beacon waterfront When folk singer Pete Seeger envisioned The River Pool at the Beacon waterfront more than 25 years ago, he said he wanted to encourage swimming in the Hudson, which he sang about as "My Dirty Stream." "He felt that if people were swimming in the water, they would work to keep it clean," said Karen Frillman, president of the pool's volunteer board. Seeger died in January 2014, after the pool had been open for seven summers. The River Pool is scheduled to open this year on Wednesday (July 1) for its 18th season at Pete and Toshi Seeger Riverfront Park. It is waiting for final approvals from the Dutchess County Health Department. Frillman said the department samples the water weekly. "The first year they tested, they said it was [clean enough to be] almost drinkable," she said. "It's a great spot." The health department also inspects the structure to ensure it's safe for the 700 or so children who visit each summer. The pool is 17 feet wide and 30 inches deep, with a net bottom. It's attached to the riverbed with cables, allowing the pool to move with the tide. Seeger modeled the pool after the floating swimming cribs anchored in the East River off Manhattan in the late-19th and early 20th centuries. Volunteers assemble the pool each summer in a cove near the park. It is staffed with a paid lifeguard from noon to 6 p.m. every day except Monday through Labor Day. The group raises about $50,000 a year with The Annual Great Newburgh to Beacon River Swim, scheduled for Aug. 1. Typically, more than 200 swimmers pay $75 to traverse the river escorted by kayaks. The River Pool board would like to see its model replicated, said Ben Weiss, one of its nine trustees. "River Pool at Peekskill, River Pool at Newburgh, River Pool at Albany — that's the big vision." About 10 years ago, the group pitched a larger pool at Scenic Hudson's Long Dock Park in Beacon, measuring 54 feet long by 20 feet wide, with a separate wading pool. "Although this would be an appealing amenity, we were — and still are — concerned about the additional infrastructure, park management demands and liability linked to hosting swimming," said Seth McKee, executive director of The Scenic Hudson Land Trust & Land Programs. For those reasons, McKee said, swimming is not allowed at any of the two dozen waterfront parks and preserves managed by Scenic Hudson, although Sojourner Truth State Park in Kingston, which the nonprofit created with New York State, will soon offer swimming overseen by state parks. The River Pool is part of a larger movement toward providing free, supervised swimming holes. By one estimate, there are 10.7 million swimming pools in the U.S., but only about 300,000 are open to the public. In New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul included funding for new or renovated public pools in her 2024 state budget as part of a program called New York Swims. The state awarded $38 million to municipalities in the Mid-Hudson region, including $8 million to help fund an outdoor aquatic center at Delano-Hitch Recreation Park in Newburgh that opened last summer. In New York City, a nonprofit called Plus Pool has been raising funds since 2015 to build a floating, self-filtering pool in the East River and to deploy river pools across the state, including near the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge. It is testing a 2,000-square-foot pilot this summer near Pier 35 in lower Manhattan.
