Yes, New Yorkers may soon swim in the East River

Ever wanted to go swimming in the East River? Unless you’re a triathlete—or fancy a dip in murky waters with a strong current—the answer is probably no. But soon, you might actually have the chance…

Meet +POOL: New York City’s first-ever river-based, water-filtering swimming pool.

What It Is

+POOL isn’t just another public pool—it’s a floating, barge-like structure equipped with a custom-designed filtration system that draws in river water, cleans it, and returns it to the East River.

The concept? Make urban swimming in natural waterways safe, accessible, and fun.
They say, “Think Berlin’s Badeschiff, but tailored for New York.”
I say, “Crikey, this is terrifying.” More obstacles for throngs of summer jetskiers to slalom, ferries to dodge, and late-night revelers to attempt silly stunts.

But hey… maybe I’m just getting old.

The pilot version—nicknamed Pilot Pool—is a 320-ton shell built at Bollinger Shipyard in Mississippi and recently lowered into the water with the help of one of the largest cranes on the East Coast. (This is a crane once used to recover a Soviet submarine, and more recently in the cleanup of the tragic Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore, 2024.)

It’s now docked at Staten Island’s Reicon Group shipyard while final systems and safety features are installed.

Where It’s Going

The plan is to anchor Pilot Pool at Pier 35 on the Lower East Side, just north of the Manhattan Bridge. That site has already hosted smaller filtration demos and water-quality tests to prove the tech works in real East River conditions.

No word yet on whether “testing” includes long lines of impatient swimmers raring to belly flop into the pool.

When Swimming Could Happen

Here’s the timeline as it stands:

2024–2025: Design review, regulatory sign-offs, and weekly water-quality testing.
Winter 2026: Final build-out of filtration systems and deck-level amenities at the Staten Island shipyard.
Spring 2026: Pilot Pool (about 2,000 sq. ft., rectangular) installed at Pier 35 for full evaluation.
Post-testing: If the Department of Health gives the green light, public swimming begins—until it’s replaced by the larger, iconic plus-shaped 9,000 sq. ft. pool.

*FYI: That’s a pool 9x larger than a typical East River Co-op 2-bedroom apartment.

So, if all goes to plan—and everything always goes to plan, right? —East River swimming could be a reality by summer 2026. You can hold off on purchasing that above-grounder.

Implications for the LES

For New Yorkers: this is being billed as a way to reclaim the waterfront, reshape public space, and make one of the city’s natural resources swimmable again. (I mean, people already fish here… maybe I am just being too “fancy-pants.” )

For the LES: While I’ve got some safety concerns—none of which are revolutionary—the smart people running the show likely share them (and hopefully have solutions). That said, I’m bullish on what this means for the neighborhood, especially in summer.

It means another draw to 10002 and surrounding neighborhoods—and that’s good news for local businesses.

As my wife always says: “There’s no one hungrier than a kid fresh out of the pool!” So if +POOL opens, be on the lookout for +BURGER, which I’m launching at Pier 36. (Which doesn’t exist… but hey, I’ll build that too. )

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