Community In the Water: The History of Asphalt Green’s Olympic Pool
Every summer, Asphalt Green runs its annual pool closure and maintenance period to keep New York City’s favorite place to swim in top condition.
For more than 30 years, Asphalt Green’s Upper East Side Olympic pool has been a premier destination for swimmers of every skill level, from those making their splash to Olympic medalists.
During our annual maintenance, we drain the entire pool—more than 600,000 gallons of water– so our team can maintain our facility from the bottom up. This decades-long ritual has ensured New Yorkers have an incredible place to swim year-round.
As our pools close for this year’s maintenance, we’re proud to share the story of how our pool became one of New York City’s most beloved athletic facilities.
Bringing an Olympic-Sized Pool to Manhattan
When Asphalt Green opened its 50-meter pool in 1993, it represented something that New York City was missing: a place where people could train and compete in an Olympic-standard indoor pool without leaving Manhattan.
The pool was built as part of a much larger vision to transform the former Municipal Asphalt Plant at York Avenue and 90th Street into a community recreation center. That vision began in the 1970s, when Dr. George E. Murphy and his wife, Annette, joined neighborhood residents in working to preserve the abandoned industrial site and turn it into a place for sports, recreation, and community. Asphalt Green was founded in 1972, and the Murphy Center opened in 1984.
As the organization grew, so did the vision for what the campus could offer. After being introduced to Asphalt Green in the mid-1980s, Al and Barrie Zesiger became founding donors of the AquaCenter to achieve their dream of bringing a state-of-the-art aquatic facility to Manhattan. Their support laid the foundation for a pool that would serve generations of New Yorkers.
The addition of the AquaCenter in 1993 expanded the vision of sports, fitness, and play for all New Yorkers to the water. The 50-meter, eight-lane pool became New York City’s first indoor Olympic-sized pool open, and its impact was immediate.
A Place to Learn, A Place for All
An Olympic-sized pool might sound like a place built primarily for elite competition, but its intended purpose was much bigger. Our pool was developed around a broader idea: that New Yorkers of all ages, backgrounds, and abilities should have access to a first-class place to learn, train, compete, and enjoy the water. Asphalt Green’s commitment to swimming for all was built by design through our Olympic pools raised-floor system that moves up and down to match the experience level of every swimmer we welcome.
Despite being a city surrounded by water, New Yorkers have struggled to access learn-to-swim programs for decades. Once our pool opened, we immediately began teaching New Yorkers of all experience vital safety skills. In the 90s, we launched Waterproofing, Asphalt Green’s free learn-to-swim program for New York City students that has since taught thousands of children to swim.
Asphalt Green later expanded its commitment to swimming for all through its Swim for the Future Scholarship, created in honor of two Asphalt Green Unified Aquatics (AGUA) Masters swim team members — Andrew Fisher and Doug Irgang — who tragically lost their lives on September 11, 2001. Swim For the Future has awarded hundreds of AGUA swim team scholarships, allowing more talented swimmers to help build the legacy of our Olympic pool, including Lia Neal.
Lia Neal traveled from Brooklyn to Asphalt Green to pursue her aquatic dreams with Swim for the Future. She went on to compete at three Olympic Games and win two Olympic medals, including bronze in the 4×100-meter freestyle relay at the 2012 London Olympics and silver in the same event at the 2016 Rio Olympics.
Today, our Olympic pool carries on its legacy with Wave Makers, our groundbreaking free learn-to-swim program founded in partnership with the Gray Foundation and New York City Council to develop large-scale free swim instruction for children in New York City. After just two years, Wave Makers has reached thousands of students at pools in every borough of our city. This summer, Asphalt Green received a $1.5 million grant from City Council Speaker Julie Menin to provide an additional 58,500 free swim lessons this fiscal year.
Our Pool’s Legacy
Over three decades, Asphalt Green has carefully nurtured Al Zesiger’s founding vision of the Olympic pool through community programs, scholarships, and by ensuring all New Yorkers have a first-class place to swim.
More than anything else, Asphalt Green’s Upper East Side pool has become a place of community. Wave Makers students, competitive AGUA athletes, adult lap swimmers, and water exercise participants all visit to pursue their athletic goals alongside swimmers they’ve come to know as friends.
That is the legacy of Asphalt Green’s Olympic-sized pool: Not just the accolades and first-class features, but the generations of New Yorkers who have found joy, health, and companionship in our water— just as the Zesigers envisioned.
So, when people ask why we put in the effort to drain 600,000 gallons of water, inspect, clean, and upgrade our pool every summer, we have a simple answer: to make sure our pool’s legacy continues.
