St. John’s Recreation Center

**REVIEW FOR THE POOL/​LOCKER ROOM ONLY**
Ive been taking swim lessons here for a few weeks. Now to be clear, I am definitely not a neat freak nor a germaphobe (no offense). However, the bathroom situation in the ladies locker room needs to be taken care of. The showers look as if they’ve never been cleaned. The curtains have mildew and need to be replaced and I’ve even seen roaches on the shower curtains. I do understand that this is New York City and varmin will make their way in no matter what. I just wish they would spray and wipe down the showers everyday, and replace the shower curtains. I cringe at the thought of putting my towel down to take a shower. It just needs a power wash, a paint job and some TLC.
The Pool is great and the lifeguards are great as well. I always have a great time.
I haven’t explored any other aspects of this facility yet, but I really want this Rec Center to succeed! I’m born and raised in Brooklyn and I want Brooklyn to always WIN!!!

I love this place. I attended poetry workshops here and the center was very welcoming. I appreciate a place where young people can go to learn and be safe. The employees are also invested and care very much about the young people and the recreational center.

I don’t want to give the facility less than 3 stars cause I didn’t visit anywhere except the locker room and the pool. The staff I encountered were nice. I’m not sure if this is an evening issue but the ladies locker room actually smelled like urine. Oh and the lockers weren’t exactly clean and some of them smelled like sweat. Admittedly I am a little more sensitive about cleanliness but it was the kind of situation where you don’t want to touch anything or put your stuff down cause it’s wet and it smells. The showers were warm, no complaints there. The pool is on the smaller side but big enough to get a workout. Water was a good temperature for laps, they have weights, kickboards and noodles. The pool and surrounding area was clean.
I’ll update when I check out the rest of the facility, but I think I’ll steer clear of the locker room if possible…

***REVIEW FOR POOL ONLY***
This pool is in the ‘HOOD. I don’t mean gunshots or crack dealers. I simply mean that this is one of the pockets where the rest of Brooklyn (apart from prime Park Slope and West Williamsburg) lives.
No, I did not feel cool or edgy for being there. However, I did not feel uncomfortable. Though I must’ve stuck out, one bothered me
A friend raved about this pool and said it had natural light and took five minutes to reach… by bike. By bus or train (2,3,4,and 5!) from Grand Army Plaza, it takes about 20 minutes. I took the bus, and it was a right treat to be above ground for once. Just walked down Sterling Place, took a right onto Washington Ave, grabbed a slice of pizza, and boarded the Crown Heights bound B45.
The stop I wanted was St. Johns Place (no apostrophe) and Schenectady Avenue. Seeing me eye the bus map, a kind local helped confirm my conclusions and taught me how to say the street name: skin-​NECK-​ta-​dee.
From the stop, I took a left, crossing the street and continuing down good olé Schenectady until I hit Prospect Place, made evident by a conglomeration of full basketball courts blazing bright under floodlights. The music of an unseen ice cream truck played creepily/​insistently.
I took a left, and saw the large maple leaf of the NYC Parks Department emblazoned on the side of a low, wide brick building just after the ball courts.
There were several fish tanks in random spots in the lobby, which I thought was a very nice touch. The ladies’ locker room was on the same floor. When the door swung open, the first thing I saw at eye level was «NO GAMBLING, NO WEAPONS, NO HORSEPLAY» — in that order. Just a part of a huge plastic wall-​mount full of rules and precautions.
There was a fine array of mid-​sized double-​decker lockers, and a couple islands of single level lockers. The showers were all recessed behind a tasteful sitting area (with sterile metal benches, unlike dirty foam) for those who might want to change in privacy.
The shower was DAMN COLD!!! Later, I found out that the boiler had supposedly been broken for weeks, but who knows. It wasn’t cold enough for me not to get in. The last thing I saw before entering the pool was a bright red and yellow sign saying something like «People with visual signs of infection, boils, or skin irregularities will not be admitted.» Well, GOOD!
The pool was an intermediate 75 feet long, but the fact that it was 42 feet WIDE and 9 feet deep makes it the largest indoor Parks pool in the Brooklyn borough… and those extra feet made all the difference, in my opinion. Plus, the three supersized lanes seemed to have an average of 1.5 people each swimming in them at any given time.
When I got to the poolside, everyone was pretty much floating on their backs, so I asked what the speeds of the lanes were. The sweet young lifeguard said, «Well, there are speeds, but unfortunately, these ladies don’t follow the rules at all…» Ah, so I’d arrived on ladies’ night, when presumably all the man-​haters, morbidly obese, self-​conscious, and gentle spirited ladies convene…
Concern about this soon melted into pure joy — or froze into pure joy, I should say, because the pool was COLLLD as the showers (definitely brave this if you want a taste of open water in an indoor setting). It was just so classically empty!
I pretty much plowed through 88 laps — over 2.5 miles, switching lanes when convenient but pretty much never having to circle swim, pass anyone too closely, or be collided into by aggro bitches in new age suits that imitate shark skin or what-​have-​you.
The couple times there was a bit of a confusing circle situation, everyone was completely calm and nice, yielding to one another and cooperating for the best possible system of sharing a lane. Again, it helped that there was a ton of space and not very many people.
As far as design goes, this pool had the standard itty bitty white tiling with a shallow end progressing into a deep end. There were lines of dark tiles to help guide the eye. Both ends of the pool had tiled lane numbers, too.
The shallow end, though, was practically only 3′ in depth. Great for practicing flip turns, I guess, because if you don’t tuck your shit in, you might just wipe your face off your head on the pool floor!
Finally, there was a lofted area with bleachers and a visible clock, inspiring nostalgia for a local Y or a high school pool (not that I was on swim team or did anything mildly athletic in h.s., but whatever). There was even camaraderie in the locker room over the coldness of the water and the showers.
«Well ladies, ’til next time,» one woman said. Next time indeed; great pool, and from what I can tell, a great all-​around recreational facility serving real locals. And I AM local, since this is by far the closest and most year-​round accessible pool to anyone living near Prospect Park. Just have to try the goat curry at PJ’s by the bus stop to