Foss Park: Latta Brothers Memorial Pool

[juldea.livejournal.com]

Has anyone been to the swimming pool in Foss Park in Winter Hill? I saw it for the first time while walking Broadway for this past weekend's SomerStreets festival. It was overflowing with kids to the point I didn't want to go near it, but it was the prime time for that, since it was a weekend day right around noon. Is it always stuffed with children? Is it cleaned up well at all?

DCR has only a little bit of information on it:
Latta Brothers Memorial Swimming and Wading Pool, McGrath Highway, (617) 666-9236
Hours of Operation: 11am to 7pm
Learn to Swim 10am to 11:30am M-F

Comments

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

I live in Winter Hill and go there with my daughter (at least, to the wading pool area, not the main pool). It seems clean to me, but since I go with my kid, I'm not the best person to tell you whether it's always stuffed with kids. :)

[juldea.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the report!

[pekmez.livejournal.com]

The other MDC pools I've been to in the area (Dilboy pool on 16, McCrehan pool on Rindge in Cambridge, near Alewife) seem to have plenty of kids whenever they're open. Far fewer in the deep end, but if the sound of kids playing is like nails on a blackboard to you it's probably still right out.

Cleanliness seems to be much more of an issue in bathrooms/locker rooms or grit on the bottom of the pool scale than any worries about the water itself being icky, but again talking about the other MDC pools that I've actually been to. ;-)

[juldea.livejournal.com]

The sound of kids isn't a problem, but if there are so many that there's no *swimming* available, the trip becomes less useful. Thank you for the review - I'll make sure to bring shower shoes!

[apricot3.livejournal.com]

i've been curious about that pool on rindge, i almost tried it out today! the kid quotient was a factor for me, too... if it's smaller kids with parents that's one thing, but the 12yr olds doing canonballs would almost be worse to me. let me know how you find it.

and also, if you have a car you could try Walden pond, it's warm water, $5, and a pretty drive with walking trails. however, they do fill up too and it's been a little flooded this season

[en-ki.livejournal.com]

A couple weekends ago I was in McCrehan and there were enough people in it that the cleaning system was overwhelmed and it was extremely cloudy. I ended up leaving earlier than I might have as a result.

If you want to swim a lap without crashing into anybody, you have no hope at McCrehan, but Dilboy can be decent.

[boblothrope.livejournal.com]

It would be a big help if they roped off even one lap lane in these pools.

[en-ki.livejournal.com]

There may be a chicken and egg problem: there never seem to be any swimmers who are at all serious, so there's no perceived need for a lane, so swimmers who are at all serious go elsewhere, [...]

That said, I just started getting slightly serious, and thinking about it for half a minute I realized that continuing to be slightly serious year-round is going to require a Y membership.

I was there on Sunday

[rollzroix.livejournal.com]

from 11-12 with my 2 year-old, before we headed out of town (in the "big kid" pool, not the wading pool). I wouldn't have described it as crowded, perhaps we just beat the rush.

In my experience it has a bit of a litterbug problem (as does the whole eastern half of Somerville, unfortunately) but otherwise it seems a pretty sanitary operation, and I'm not at all apprehensive about swimming there.

Re: I was there on Sunday

[juldea.livejournal.com]

Excellent review! Thank you!

[craigindaville.livejournal.com]

FWIW, as I was getting off the bus at the stop right next to the pool an hour ago there were just a handful of people in there.

[tt02144.livejournal.com]

The pool at Foss Park is usually pretty crowded. I used to bring my kids to the pool at Dilboy, which was always much less crowded. As far as the behavior of the kids using the pool, I have found that it depends on the management at that particular pool. Some are more tightly managed than others. If you have a car, there is also an MDC pool in Stoneham, right near the Stone Zoo.

[amy-s1.livejournal.com]

There is also swimming at the Arlington Reservoir Beach. A little further away but much closer than Walden Pond, and its nicer to hang out on sand than concrete.

[boblothrope.livejournal.com]

It's expensive for nonresidents: $8 per person weekdays, $10 weekends.

And the person who wrote http://www.arlingtonma.gov/Public_Documents/ArlingtonMA_Recreation/res doesn't know how to use semicolons.