Joshua Torres, the superintendant at 171 Audubon Ave. in Washington Heights in upper Manhattan, stands with a water gun on Monday next to the pool he set up near the building.
Photo: Charles Passy/The Wall Street JournalWhile those with backyard pools may splash away to their heart’s content during the current heat wave, Joshua Torres has come up with an alternative for apartment dwellers in his upper Manhattan neighborhood of Washington Heights.
Namely, a curbside pool.
As the superintendent of the building at 171 Audubon Ave., Mr. Torres, 34 years old, took it upon himself to purchase a super-sized pool—measuring some 18 feet across, with a depth of 4 feet—and set it up on the street on what would normally be a prime parking space outside his building.
Since he opened the pool to neighbors on Saturday, it has been nothing but a nonstop pool party, he said, replete with folks lounging in folding chairs or bringing out a pot of rice and beans for some post-swimming dining.
“I wanted to do something for the community,” said Mr. Torres. He added that he strategically positioned the pool next to a dumpster so that he could do some dives, as risky a proposition as that may be.
Mr. Torres said he hasn’t fielded any complaints from police officers or community officials about his pool, a model from Intex, a major producer of above-ground units. And he plans to keep it going as long as possible. City records also don’t show any 311 complaints about the pool taking up space on the street.
Still, it is unclear if the pool is legally allowed to be on the street. The city’s transportation department didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The New York Police Department also didn’t respond to an email request for comment.
Mr. Torres insists his operation is perfectly safe, noting that the pool, which cost him $900 (at least one neighbor chipped in), came with a filtration pump that keeps the water clean. He also put up barricades around the pool to keep traffic at bay.
And because of the pool’s sheer size, social distancing isn’t an issue, Mr. Torres and some pool users said. Mr. Torres said the pool can comfortably accommodate about 10 people.
The setup arrived just in time, according to his neighbors. Parts of the city hit a heat index of 100 degrees midday Monday. Temperatures are expected to cool down Tuesday, with thunderstorms in the evening, according to the National Weather Service.
Mr. Torres may have some company in terms of finding creative ways to beat the heat, especially since New York City-run pools haven’t yet opened to the public because of the new coronavirus pandemic.
Posts on social media show New Yorkers setting up other street pools or rooftop or balcony ones.
Mr. Torres’s neighbors appreciate his ingenuity and say it is just what was needed, especially during a summer that has already seen the city challenged in myriad ways.
“This is something positive,” said Glenda Bones, 42, a Washington Heights resident.
Others said Mr. Torres’s efforts speak to the essence of the neighborhood, a close-knit, heavily Dominican enclave where summer is spent hanging outside with friends and family and occasionally setting up a barbecue grill on the street.
But a whole pool?
“Only in the Heights,” said Teresa Mejia, 42, another local. “Things like that are normal for us.”
Not that setting up or maintaining a pool doesn’t come with its share of issues. Mr. Torres said that the biggest one may have been filling the pool, since he had to run a small hose from his building to do the job.
“It took us, like, eight hours,” he said.
Write to Charles Passy at cpassy@wsj.com and Katie Honan at Katie.Honan@wsj.com
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