#50: Rye YMCA Brookside Pool

Location: Rye, New York

Configuration: 6 lanes of 25 yards

Fee: Free as guest of member

Fees to Date: $191.87

My enthusiastic follow-up on JGH’s pool suggestions brought me to the Rye Y last Sunday morning to swim with the “weekend warriors,” an informal, testosterone-heavy group of mostly former collegiate swimmers. They swam a challenging workout for an hour or so starting right when the pool opened and then went on with their days.

As I overheard in the locker room later, where I was incognito as a visiting warrior, they are not beloved by other Y members due to the turbulence they create. By my observation, they used the space very efficiently, considerately leaving the rest of the pool free for civilian lap swimmers.

Their pool–new in 2003–is lovely, a standard 6-laner with light from large windows on two sides piercing the pool with sunbeams. Add in a friendly lifeguard who writes messages like the one at right and the typical YMCA homeyness, and you have a nice place to swim. As at many Ys, there’s a separate teaching pool (theirs dates to 1955), leaving the Brookside pool mainly for the enjoyment of lap swimmers.

One locker room innovation that I haven’t seen elsewhere is the placement of the suit spinner: built into the counter between two sinks. This puts it by both a drain and a power source and avoids an unsightly outcropping from the wall. Other facilities should take note.

The “Brookside” name refers to Rye Brook right alongside the parking lot. It’s so prone to flooding that the Y installed floodgates for protection, and they worked well in the recent storm, allowing the Y to reopen and welcome in community members soon after the storm passed.

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