Flushing Meadows Corona Park Aquatics Center
131-04 Meridian Road | also 125-40 Roosevelt Avenue, 56-01 Grand Central Parkway | Flushing Meadows-Corona Park | built 2008
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The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.
Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 2001
Work on a planned park pool stalls after the September 11 attacks
Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Borough President Claire Shulman proposed the center in 1999 as a way to revive the park, and a modest pool grew into an Olympic-size pool paired with an indoor ice rink. The foundation was finished in 2001, but funding problems after the September 11 attacks halted the project.
“The building's foundation was completed in 2001 but after the September 11 attacks the project was halted due to funding issues.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 2003
New York names the unfinished natatorium a venue for its 2012 Olympic bid
In 2003 the building was picked to host swimming events if New York City won its bid for the 2012 Summer Olympics, and was also slated for water polo. London won the Games, but the Parks Department, working with the Economic Development Corporation, went ahead and built the pool anyway.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2008
The city's first new indoor public pool in four decades opens here
Completed in February 2008 at a cost of $66.3 million, the 110,000-square-foot natatorium and ice rink was the biggest recreation building the city had ever put in one of its parks. No indoor public pool had opened in New York in the previous 40 years. By 2020, renamed the Aquatics Center, it was drawing 350,000 visitors a year.
“Built in 2008, the $66.3 million project is the first indoor public pool to open in New York City in four decades.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 2009
The natatorium's cable-hung roof on two 130-foot masts wins a 2009 steel design award
Handel Architects and Kevin Hom Architects drew on the World's Fair pavilions that once stood on this site. Geiger Engineers set the Olympic pool and NHL-size rink end to end like a seesaw and hung the roof from two 130-foot masts by twelve steel cables each, giving the clear spans needed to keep chlorine from damaging the structure. The carefully sequenced steelwork won a 2009 IDEAS2 award for innovative design with structural steel.
“…the Flushing Meadow Natatorium received the 2009 Innovative Design in Engineering and Architecture with Structural Steel award…”
Source: Wikipedia
- 2020
A roof repair meant to take six weeks keeps the pool closed for three years
The center shut in January 2020 for emergency roof repairs scheduled to last six weeks. The COVID-19 pandemic delayed the work until July 2021, and the city then decided to fix the pool floors as well; by November 2022 that job was only 10 percent done. The pools finally reopened in February 2023.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2025
The Aquatics Center closes again over mechanical problems and ozone in the ground
After reopening in 2023, the building shut once more in March 2024 for the replacement of pool floor panels. In July 2025 it was shut again because of mechanical problems and the discovery of high levels of ozone in the ground.
“…was again closed in July 2025 due to mechanical issues and the discovery of high concentrations of ozone in the ground.”
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
Nearby
- Stadium 17123-40 Roosevelt Avenue | 3 entries
- Louis Armstrong Stadium14 Meridian Road | 5 entries
- Arthur Ashe Stadium122-02 Roosevelt Avenue | 8 entries
- Etihad Park37-11 126th Street | 5 entries
- Flushing Post Office41-65 Main Street | 2 entries
- Citi Field41 Seaver Way | 5 entries
All 12 buildings with stories in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park