Hamilton Fish among pools that will reopen

New York City is getting back into the swim of things as it reopens from the coronavirus shutdown — and that includes opening beaches and pools.

On Wednesday, Mayor de Blasio announced that the city’s public beaches are now open.

In addition, he said that 15 of the city’s 53 public outdoor pools will also be opening for the season, some as soon as next month.

One of them is in the Downtown Manhattan area — the Hamilton Fish Pool on the Lower East Side, at E. Houston and Pitt Sts. The “Ham Fish” Pool is Olympic-sized at 165 feet long. There’s also a wading pool.

The reopenings will be phased, with an initial three pools opening July 24, and the other 12 opening Aug. 1.

Daily hours of operation will be 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., seven days a week.

Pools opening July 24 will include Mullaly, Wagner and Liberty pools.

Pools opening Aug. 1 will include Crotona, Haffen, Sunset Park, Betsy Head, Kosciuszko, Hamilton Fish, Jackie Robinson, Marcus Garvey, Astoria, Fisher, Lyons and Tottenville.

Some other popular Downtown-area outdoor pools — like those at the Dapolito Center and Asser Levy Center — didn’t make the cut.

Earlier on, it had been unclear if outdoor pools would be allowed to reopen at all.

“We were not sure before whether we would be able to open some of them,” de Blasio said Wednesday. “But now we will be able to open some of our biggest outdoor pools and some of the outdoor pools in the communities hit hardest by the coronavirus.

“The truth is we had to choose the ones that we thought would have the maximum benefit for the communities hit hardest, the largest pools that we could open, the ones for folks who were the farthest from the beaches,” he added.

“Now, again, we’re going to do it the right way,” he stressed. “There will be social distancing, there will be face coverings when you’re not in the pool. … There’s going to be spacing when people are waiting in line to go in, there’s going to be a lot of things to make sure we really hold on to the progress we made on healthcare, but it will all be worth it. And for our kids, in particular, it’s going to help for them to have a better summer.”