Media and News Archive

Short Takes@Lunch with Ann Lubin Buttenwieser ’53

“I am the floating pool lady. Literally”
Dalton welcomed back Dalton community member Ann Buttenwieser (’53 P’75, P’77, P’79, P’83 GP’15, GP’18, GP’21). Ann is an Urban Planner with a specialty in Waterfront Planning. After graduating with a PhD from the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture and Planning, she worked at the NYC Department of Planning, the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation, and the NYC Economic Development Corporation, all agencies with a waterfront portfolio. Buttenwieser is also an urban historian.

In this noontime conversation with her granddaughter Charlotte Buttenwieser ’21, Ann talked about her passion for park planning and providing recreational areas, especially at New York’s waterfronts. “New York is a city of islands,” she commented, and she has focused on striving to improve access to recreational areas in all boroughs. When asked if she has encountered any problems with her waterfront parks, she commented, “My problem is we need more.” 

Having swam competitively in her youth, both on Dalton’s high school team and at Swarthmore College, she decided to outfit and donate to the city a floating pool for the free enjoyment of the public in 2000.

Enter the “floating pool lady,” a nickname given to her when she attended a meeting to try and sell her idea of a floating barge complete with a pool. The chair of the meeting introduced her as such. It stuck and is now the title of her new book, The Floating Pool Lady: A Quest to Bring a Public Pool to New York City's Waterfront. Now located in the South Bronx, the pool normally serves over 50,000 swimmers! 

Ann’s final bit of advice to this ShortTakes@Lunch crowd? “[Civic advocacy] has been a passion for me. If you have a passion, do it if you possibly can. Just do it.”

If you would like to purchase The Floating Pool Lady: A Quest to Bring a Public Pool to New York City's Waterfront please click here to save 30% and enter code: 09FLYER.
 
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