limited year-round – Chicago’s push for more summer aquatics—river swims, water polo, and public art tied to swimming—sits alongside a stark gap in year-round pool access on the Far South Side. That shortage, paired with historic exclusion from public swimming spaces, comes as dro
Chicago’s summer waterfront is gearing up for movement: the Chicago River is set to host the second annual River Swim in September. and lakefront water polo games will run through the summer with Chicago Park District lifeguards watching more closely than referees. Even along Michigan Avenue, Carole A. Feuerman’s Monuments of Stillness invites passersby to linger on what stillness and balance can mean in water.
But for many South Side families, the closest thing to a “great day for a swim” is a closed door.
For more than 70 years. Chicago has also known a different story about the intersection of swimming. discipline. and access—embodied. in one personal thread. through Fraser Robinson. In 1951, Robinson earned his junior lifeguarding certification, the DuSable Dial reported. A school yearbook shows him competing as a proud DuSable High School Sea Horse. In 1953, an archived Chicago Daily Tribune article says he won an art scholarship. Robinson later worked as a water filtration plant pump operator. helping maintain the infrastructure that ensured people in the Chicago area had access to clean water.
On Father’s Day, the question isn’t whether Robinson understood the beauty of swimming—his life suggests he did. It’s whether today’s children, especially those who live where pools are scarce, are being given the basic chance to learn.
The problem isn’t just that swimming is hard. It’s that the infrastructure to teach it isn’t consistently there.
Fraser Robinson’s story circles back to a core idea about the sport: to truly excel. swimmers develop a “feel” for water—more like an artist’s touch than a brute-force workout. Some people are born with it; others need instruction. “The arc of your arm as it enters the water” matters as much as strength built from weighted reps.
Everyone can learn to swim, the piece argues—if there are open pools and qualified educators.
In lakefront neighborhoods on the Far South Side, the shortage is immediate. The article says there are fewer than five year-round Chicago Park District facilities that offer limited learn-to-swim opportunities when they are fully staffed and operational. It points to a deeper history as well: the “depth of historic exclusion of Black communities from public swimming spaces” has contributed to what it describes as a dangerous public health issue.
The numbers provided land with force. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says drowning is the leading cause of accidental death for children ages 1 to 4. It also says Black children ages 5 to 9 die of drowning at rates 2.6 times higher than white children. and it says the rate is 3.6 times higher for Black children ages 10 to 14.
Chicago Park District programming and outside efforts can’t fully close the gap. The article cites low-cost swim lessons offered by the park district and by outliers like the Salvation Army Kroc Center in West Pullman. but it says it’s not enough. When aging facilities can’t be maintained or safely staffed, pools close, which reduces crucial aquatics programming.
The consequence is that Chicago children cannot learn to swim at the same rate as their suburban peers, the piece says, who have access to top-tier, well-funded facilities.
Pools, it adds, don’t just cool off a hot day. In neighborhoods where they’re open. the article describes them as a civic resource—an oasis in a desert—where children are supervised and cared for by their communities. It says elderly residents get relief in water’s weightless support. teenage lifeguards gain economic mobility from skilled and well-paying jobs. and the shared space helps build intergenerational friendships.
When pools close, the article compares the vacuum to “shuttered churches,” with vacant spaces leaving communities without something they need.
For a city that sits on the lake, the argument turns to what leaders should do next: investment in aquatic infrastructure that can buoy health, wellness, and safety.
The piece even gestures toward a particular solution—something it says might be “out of my depth” to propose—such as a state-of-the-art natatorium on the South Side to centralize aquatics and elevate swimming as a discipline. It describes the vision as a world-class natatorium with high-caliber. year-round aquatics programming in a community historically excluded from the sport.
Pools are not easy to engineer or simple to manage, the article acknowledges, but it frames that difficulty as no excuse to invest less in what it calls the “profound promise of the water.”
The final note points not to policy paperwork but to a lived connection to the work: Maisie O’Malley is the co-founder of Chicago Dogs Aquatics.
Chicago South Side swimming drowning Chicago Park District Far South Side natatorium aquatics learn-to-swim public health
So like… are they shutting down pools or something? Seems crazy to me.
I didn’t even realize some kids can’t swim year-round. That’s messed up. But I saw the river swim thing and thought that would fix it? Guess not.
Wait, I thought the issue was more about parents not teaching kids, not the pools. Like if they’re close enough, why can’t they just go to the lakefront? Idk, I’m probably missing something.
70 years?? That’s longer than some peoples whole marriages. They keep doing water polo and river swims downtown but meanwhile South Side doors are closed. Reminds me how they always “pilot” stuff in one area then act shocked when other neighborhoods fall behind.