Plus Pool

Plus Pool (often stylized as "+ POOL") is an initiative started in 2010 to create an innovative, floating swimming pool on the East River in New York City. Architect Dong-Ping Wong developed the concept of a floating pool that would filter river water to supply clean water for the pool. The pool is planned to be located at Pier 35 in the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

Plus Pool
Commercial?	No
Type of project	Public swimming pool
Location	East River, New York City
Founder	Dong-Ping Wong, Oana Stănescu, Archie Lee Coates IV, Jeffrey Franklin[1]
Established	June 2010
Launched	2025 Manhattan - Lower East Side - Pier 35
Funding	New York State, Crowdfunded via Kickstarter
Website	www.pluspool.org/home/

Pier 35 on the East River in Lower Manhattan is the planned location for the first Plus Pool in 2025.

Concept

Plus Pool was designed to clean the waters of the East River and provide a public space for water-based recreation.^[2] The pool's name comes from the fact that it would be shaped like a plus sign. The original design called for four separate pools (lounge, kids', watersports, and lap-swimming pools). The separate smaller pools can be combined into one large pool with an area of around 9,000 square feet (840 m²) and configured into a lap pool with several lanes.^[3][4]

Plus Pool was designed to filter up to one million gallons of river water daily through its custom, chemical-free, layered filtration system.^[5][6] Over 250,000 gallons of the river water surrounding the pool will become safe, clean, filtered water used to fill the pool.^[7] The pool was designed to contain 285,500 U.S. gallons (1,081,000 L; 237,700 imp gal) of water and to filter from 600,000 U.S. gallons (2,300,000 L; 500,000 imp gal) up to 1,000,000 U.S. gallons (3,800,000 L; 830,000 imp gal) per day.^[3][8][9]

History

Prior to 2013

Beginning in the 19th century, New York City has had as many as 15 'floating baths' moored along the Hudson and East Rivers.^[4] A floating pool known as the 'Floating Pool Lady' was created at Brooklyn Bridge Park in 2007 and continues to operate in Barretto Point Park in the Bronx. Plus Pool was designed to use water directly from the East River, filtering it to make it safe for swimming, which is unique from previous floating pools.^[10][11][12]

In 2010, Dong-Ping Wong of Family New York (now known as Food New York) designed a plus-shaped floating pool with the idea that it could filter river water through its walls. He asked Jeffrey Franklin and Archie Lee Coates IV of PlayLab to initially help create a website and booklet to raise support for the project and soon the three decided to be co-founders. Family New York led the strategy, architecture, and engineering while PlayLab led the branding and communication. In 2011, the two companies began a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter to raise money for Plus Pool, an innovative pool design, utilizing a custom filtering system as a clean water source for a floating pool on the East River.^[2]

In July 2011, the team raised over $41,000 on Kickstarter to test filtration materials using water from the East River.^[13] Originally, the goal was to raise $15 million to fund a completely functioning pool by 2016.^[5][14][15]

2013–present

In July 2013, with the help of a feasibility study by Columbia University, over a quarter million dollars was raised to build a 35-square-foot (3.3 m²) miniature version of the floating pool.^[16][17] The "test lab" was a working prototype to analyze its effectiveness in river conditions.^[5] Since its inception, several independent companies have participated in the project, including the engineering firm, Arup,^[17][18] design firm IDEO, environmental consultants from One Nature, and Storefront for Art and Architecture.^[19][20] The project also garnered interest from government officials, notably New York State Senator Daniel Squadron and New York City Council Member Brad Lander.^[21][22] In November 2013, Time magazine named Plus Pool one of the 25 best inventions of the year 2013.^[10][23]

In 2015, a nonprofit organization known as Friends of +Pool was created to oversee the pool's development.^[3][24] Plus Pool was originally projected to open by the summer of 2016, but the project saw little development then.^[15] In 2017, Plus Pool formed a partnership with the Heineken brewing company. The team created a promotional video for Plus Pool, narrated by Neil Patrick Harris, to revitalize public interest in the project.^[25][26] The pool's sponsors also applied for a provisional patent in 2017 and an international patent the next year.^[3] In 2019, the founders of Plus Pool introduced a light sculpture in the East River. Funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, Heineken, and the Howard Hughes Corporation, the sculpture changes colors based on water conditions. The system and algorithm behind it were developed by scientists at Columbia University and developers and designers at the tech firm Reaktor.^[27]

In 2021, New York City approved a location for Plus Pool just north of the Manhattan Bridge on the Lower East Side. The team proceeded to work on regulatory thresholds for the river and pool bathers.^[9][10][28]

On January 5, 2024, New York Governor, Kathy Hochul announced that a joint effort by the state and New York City would fund a combined $16 million to the Plus Pool project as part of the governor's NY SWIMS initiative. Testing of the filtration system began in August 2024 on a barge at Pier 35. Once the initial testing is complete, a small-scale version of Plus Pool will be built for final tests during 2025, with a full version scheduled to be opened to the public in 2026.^{[29][30][31][32][33][8][34]}