By Tom Welander, a Friend of Grant Park Pool
The Grant Park pool is open for the 2025 summer season. And it’s looking good.
Both the 50-meter pool and the wading pool are open. That’s great for the kids’ and their parents’ sakes, obviously, but it’s also a blessing to lap swimmers. There are fewer kids hanging on the lap lane ropes like shipwreck survivors.
The days and hours are the same as last year: Wednesday through Sunday from 12:30pm to 7:00pm. We have Aquatics Director Marcus Byams on record saying that 7:00pm means patrons get to swim until 7:00pm. Let’s hold him to it.
Hopefully, we’ll get some signage that patrons can point to if the staff backslides into the habit of clearing the pool at inconsistent times prior to 7:00pm. It’s a bummer that the pool closes an hour earlier than it used to (remember when it was 8:00?), so the difference between 6:30 or 6:45 and 7:00 matters even more than it used to. If you like to swim on weekdays after work, speak up and lend your voice to the cause.
Here’s some really great news: our 2023 manager Karla Chapman is back. She was good. She’s a grown-up who’s very nice yet has authority with the teen lifeguards. She runs a tighter ship than other managers we’ve had.
One other item. Swim diapers: you need ’em? They got ’em. Director Byams used city money to supply swim diapers for babies and toddlers that show up lacking that mandatory garment. They’re available for free at the entrance. When I saw that, I told Director Byams he’s stepping all over our toes. That was OUR thing. Friends of Grant Park Pool (FoGPP) owned the free swim diaper space. I said it with a smile of course but I did let him know that by footing the bill for swim diapers he’s deflated the entire philanthropic wing of FoGPP. All the wind’s out of that bag, for now.
Please continue to email friendsofgrantparkpool@gmail.com with your impressions of the facility! We’ll continue to summarize and relay them to the city (without naming the individual commentors).
