By Jon Palmer, news correspondent
Amanda McKenzie, a junior behavioral neuroscience major and former lifeguard, said all she wants on 90-degree days is a place to swim.
“I love to swim,” McKenzie said. “But I really have no place in Boston where I can swim in safe water. It’s a bummer for me, because it’s so hot and I have no air conditioning.”
McKenzie said her friend who lives in an apartment building on Huntington Avenue. occasionally lets her in to the pool there, but that she hasn’t found any public pools in town that she likes.
Northeastern offers students, faculty, staff, and alumni use of the pool in the Barletta Natatorium at the Cabot Center for lap and recreational swimming daily, but the pool is currently closed for renovations until Monday.
Catie Dussault, a junior biology major who participated in the swim team all throughout high school, says she likes the pool at Cabot.
“As a lap pool, it’s really good,” Dussault said. “Recreationally, that’s not where I would choose to go. The hours change for public swimming every day, but they have pretty decent hours in the summer.”
Some students, like McKenzie, have trouble finding time when the pool is open.
“They only have free swim for two hours in the afternoon, and two hours at night,” McKenzie said. “Its kind of hard to work around my schedule.”
There are a few pools open to the public in Boston. The Mirabella pool in Puopolo Park in the North End is open to Boston residents at a cost of $10 per person per visit. The Boston Community Center runs the pool, and lifeguards are on duty during all hours, which are from 11:00 am to 7:00 pm.
Dussault said she thinks beaches are a better alternative for swimming, because they are free. She said the easiest one to get to is Revere Beach, which is at the stop on the same name on the Blue Line. Though it has had a reputation in the past as being dirty, she said that it isn’t – but it isn’t the best, either.
“It’s just … an experience,” Dussault said. “Some days you want to go to the nice beach and lay in the sun. Sometimes you want to go to the trashy beach and get an ice-cream and people watch. That’s when you go to Revere Beach.”
Others, like McKenzie, have harsher things to say about it.
“I would never swim in that water,” McKenzie said. “Its nasty. There’s broken glass and trash everywhere.”
Sam Brodie and Talia Fraine graduated from Northeastern in 2010 moved to Revere last summer, where they live right on the water. They both said that the rumors they had initially heard about the beach – like those they heard about Revere itself – turned out not to be true.
“When we were at Northeastern, Revere and its beach had a reputation of being dirty,” said Brodie, 23. “We heard it was all needles and knife fights, but it’s actually very clean.”
Fraine said the beach is an important part of the community, bringing people together with different events and festivals. One of which, the Revere Beach National Sand Sculpting Festival, will be held July 14-17.
“It’s great to see the locals coming down to the beach,” said Fraine, 23. “It really is the focal point of the community.”
Dussault said she prefers the less populated beaches, because they remind her of the beaches in her home state of Maine.
“My favorite beaches are on Nahant,” Dussault said.
Busses to Nahant aren’t available on weekdays, but Dussault said they run twice in the morning and twice at night on weekends. She takes MBTA busses to get there – the 422 bus to Lynn, and then the 439 bus to Nahant.
“It’s a bit of a hike, but if you’re feeling adventurous, it’s well worth it. It’s very quiet, clean, and peaceful.”
