Chicago Public Pools

Davis Park Pool, Looking West, 2010

The summer of 2010 stirred in me the compulsion to photograph each and every one of Chicago's 47 outdoor public swimming pools. Initially, I was interested in telling the story of childhood and summertime in the city, featuring the cheapest way to stay cool and have fun: the public pool. This interest stems from my own childhood in suburban Chicago. As a kid, I lived nearby the local pool; it seems like my sister and I swam everyday and spent every evening sitting on the couch, on towels, in our still-wet suits. To get started this summer, I created a map of the pools* and embarked on a Chicago neighborhoods tour that took me from Ada Park, at 11250 South Ada, to Norwood Park, at 5801 North Natoma Avenue – over 1,200 blocks north to south and 92 blocks from east to west. What I discovered was much more varied and complicated then I could have imagined. These pools created timeless images; without indicators like cars, clothes or digital accessories, these images could have been made anytime in the last half century. Regionally ambiguous as well, they read as a portrait of urban America, as if they could have been taken in any major city in the United States. Taken as a whole, the photographs paint a layered representation of the urban community: stoic architectural treatments of the pools, sans people, intimate portraits of kids and adults who frequent the pools, and finally, crowded pool shots of the varied demographic communities that occupy the pools at any given time.
*Click HERE for the map

Click HERE for the full Statement as a PDF. (link is not set)
Click HERE for the top 50 images from the Pool Project.
Click HERE for the next 100 images form the Pool Project

Hamilton Park Pool, Posing, 2010

Pulaski Park Pool, Lockers, 2010

Pulaski Park Pool, from Cleaver Street rooftop, 2010