South End's Blackstone pool hearing held without administration officials

No one from Boston Public Schools or Boston Centers for Youth and Families appeared Sept. 24 at a City Council hearing on the Blackstone pool, the indoor pool in the South End that has sat closed for years.

City Councilor Erin Murphy (at-large), who chairs the Human Services Committee, kept the hearing order, docket 1335, in committee. She said she would hold an evening hearing in the neighborhood before the end of the year and invite the administration again.

The committee invited Brian Ford, executive director of facilities management for Boston Public Schools; Mary Skipper, the superintendent; and Marta Rivera, the commissioner of Boston Centers for Youth and Families, Murphy said. Invitations went out Sept. 2.

The administration did not appear, and its reasons are not in the record. City Councilor Ed Flynn (District 2), the lead sponsor, said he was disappointed in its decision not to send anyone “due to a scheduling conflict.” He and Murphy said a Boston Red Sox celebration was scheduled at the Blackstone School for the same time, after the invitations went out.

The pool is inside the Blackstone Community Center, part of the Blackstone School, near Villa Victoria, the former Cathedral public housing development and Castle Square. Flynn said 16 of the 18 pools run by Boston Centers for Youth and Families have reopened, but not the Blackstone or the Mirabella pool.

The question is whether the city will pay to fix the current pool or wait for a new school that Flynn said he is not confident will be built.

“I believe this is a racial justice issue to have a vacant swimming pool in the heart of the communities of color and to leave it unfixed for an extended period of time is simply unacceptable.”

The administration's earlier answers sit in the record. Asked about renovation plans at a 2021 budget hearing, it said the community center is housed in the school, so the school department's facilities office performs and funds upgrades, Murphy said. The administration said it was “unaware of any specific renovation plans.”

Why is the pool closed?

Flynn said the pool has been closed indefinitely because of structural issues: a deteriorated pool shell, a drain line failure and groundwater intrusion. At a June council hearing on the city's pools, he said, councilors were told reopening it would require a full excavation.

The city's capital plan for fiscal 2027 through 2031 includes $500,000 for a Blackstone School study that will set the scope of major renovations at the school and pool, Flynn said.

“From what I am told, the only way a pool can open at the Blackstone is if a new school is built,” Flynn said. “I'm not confident a new school is going to be built there.” He asked for an independent study of how to fix the current pool.

Accounts of how long it has been closed differ. Murphy said the pool was operating in May 2019 and was listed as closed by summer 2022. In 2019, the administration told a budget hearing the pool was functioning, she said. Neighborhood leaders said it had been shut much longer.

Where did the money go?

Murphy said the city's 2024-2028 capital plan showed a $2 million Blackstone pool project. Later plans kept $2 million authorized but showed no spending scheduled, she said, and the fiscal 2027-2031 plan has no Blackstone pool project at all.

The city has not published a reopening date, an itemized repair estimate or a public engineering assessment, Murphy said. “So we need to get it in the budget,” she said.

The two agencies “can't just pass the buck back and forth,” Murphy said. Close to 600 students attend the Blackstone, and with the pool open they could take swimming lessons during the school day, she said.

Murphy questioned renovating an outdoor pool elsewhere without finding money to open a year-round one. “What's good for one neighborhood has to be good for another,” she said.

What the neighborhood said

Jonathan Alves, president of the Washington Harrison Neighborhood Association, said the pool has not opened in his more than 12 years in the South End. He said he spoke with 50 residents about it.

Alves credited the city for reopening many pools. But he asked why seasonal outdoor pools came first, ahead of an indoor pool that can be used all year. He cited national data showing about 65% of African American children and 45% of Latino children have little or no swimming ability.

“Let's reopen this pool,” Alves said.

Steve Fox, chair of the South End Forum, said he recalled the pool reopening briefly almost three decades ago before it closed again. He said the South End branch library has been closed more than three years, leaving the neighborhood a “public facility desert.”

Fox said the community center itself needs major structural renovation before it can house a new pool. Neighborhood groups ask for that money in the capital budget each year, he said. “And every year it gets ignored.”

State Rep. John Moran, whose district includes parts of the South End and lower Roxbury, offered state help: “Anything that we can do at the state level to help we're willing to do.” He urged more support for the Friends of the Blackstone, comparing its fundraising with the Hurley School's.

Flynn read letters of support into the record, including one from Vanessa Calderón-Rosado, who leads IBA, the organization that manages Villa Victoria. She wrote that investing in the pool “is an investment in equity, public health, youth development and neighborhood vitality.”

City Councilor John FitzGerald (District 3), a co-sponsor, said the Murphy School pool in Dorchester is also out of service. City Councilor Miniard Culpepper (District 7), the third sponsor, was absent because of an emergency, Flynn said.

City Councilor Brian Worrell (District 4), who arrived at the end, urged colleagues to budget for staffing too, so facilities are open on weekdays and weekends.

What happens next?

Murphy said the next hearing would be held in the evening in the community, possibly at the Blackstone School, because many residents work during the day. She said she would set the date with Flynn and the community, “definitely before the year out.”

Flynn suggested reconvening, perhaps in November, with the school department and the mayor's office. No date was set. Alves pledged to rally residents to attend.

The administration will be invited, Murphy said, “and hopefully at that time they will show up.”