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On the same steamy Friday last month, they all were drawn to the same spot: a sprawling basin of coolness steeped in history, theirs and the city's.
There was the man with black swim trunks and a deep tan who has been coming to Astoria Pool for more than 60 years, first as a teenager to watch dazzling diving shows, and now, in his retirement, to swim laps and take the sun.
The tall guy in the beige uniform, a gardener most of his career, this summer traded his duties at a city greenhouse to become supervisor of the pool where, as a kid, he'd scale the fence for illicit, after-hours dips.
The couple with the camera visiting from North Carolina - in the second day of their first trip to New York - were posing for pictures on one of the pool's terraces, with the Triborough Bridge, the East River and the Manhattan skyline filling the frame behind them.
Now, more than 70 years after it first opened, Astoria Pool is among 10 outdoor public pools that the city is designating as landmarks because of their playful architectural flourishes, the grand ambition of the man who built them, Robert Moses, and how they figured in the history of New York and those who use them.
"It really shows how things go around because I used to sneak into this pool as a kid and now I'm the supervisor," said Parks Department Pool Supervisor Jorge Cisneros, who until this summer worked as a horticulturist at the landmarked greenhouse at Forest Park in Kew Gardens. "I'm really enjoying this because it brings back a lot of history for me."
Astoria Pool, the city's largest, was the first to be given landmark status, in June of last year. So far, six of the 10 pools have gotten the designation, and another - Highbridge Pool in Washington Heights - is scheduled for a hearing before the Landmarks Preservation Commission on Aug. 14.
The designation means that the...