Steeplechase Park was an amusement park at Coney Island created by George C. Tilyou and opened in 1897. An attraction dubbed the "World's Largest Swimming Pool," seen here, opened there in 1909.

Starting in the 1920s, the pool at Steeplechase Park played host to several beauty contests, including the Grandma Bathing Beauty Contest. Look at those beautiful grandmas getting ready to dive in! This pool no longer exists, but its site is home to another summer favorite: baseball at MCU Park. Go Cyclones!

Upon her death in 1907, British immigrant Betsy Head bequeathed money to the City of New York for creating recreational facilities. Betsy Head Memorial Park was built in Brownsville in 1915, including this swimming pool. The pool was expanded with WPA resources in the 1930s and is still in use today.

Some of the earliest public pools in Brooklyn were in bathhouses. Created under the auspices of Borough President Edward Riegelmann in 1922, the Metropolitan pool and bath were designed by prominent architect Henry Bacon, who also designed the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. The indoor pool's most notable feature is its soaring skylight. It was recently completely renovated.

In 1936, the New York City Parks Department opened 11 Olympic-size swimming pools across the city built with WPA resources. At McCarren Park in Greenpoint, the pool could accommodate 6,800 swimmers at a time and the bathhouse was the largest in the system.

While the other WPA-era pools were renovated in the 1980s, McCarren Park Pool sat empty for decades. At one point it even played host to summer movie screenings, with viewers setting up folding chairs and blankets on the bottom of the empty pool! Today it is once again in use as a summer oasis.

The pool at the Red Hook Recreation Area was also part of the WPA era, and 40,000 people attended its opening in 1936. It is one of 8 outdoor pools still operated by the Parks Department in Brooklyn.

The gleaming Art Deco pool at the storied Hotel St. George in Brooklyn Heights was famous in the hotel's heyday from the 1930s to the 1950s. Truman Capote even swam in its sparkling waters. Though the hotel closed down in 1995, rumor has it the pool is still intact underneath the Eastern Athletic Club that occupies the space today.

In the early 1970s, a new era of city pools dawned as 19 new pools were constructed across the boroughs. Though these pools tended to be significantly smaller than the WPA-era Olympic size pools, they nonetheless provided summer oases for sweltering New Yorkers. Among the 5 pools created in Brooklyn during this era was one at the Bushwick Houses, seen here under construction.

Another pool built in Brooklyn in the 1970s is located here at Commodore Barry Park, across the street from the Brooklyn Navy Yard. For years, the pool had a view of Admirals Row, a set of large but deteriorating mansions within the Navy Yard. In recent years, Admirals Row was demolished and the pool is now directly across from New York City's first Wegmans supermarket.